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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467503">Lost on the Road of Life</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa'>Ranowa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No Kaguya, Obito Redemption, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Suicidal Thoughts, Uchiha Obito Lives, World Travel, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:40:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,442</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Obito asked to die.</p><p>They send him on a good will mission instead, and with Kakashi as his keeper.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hatake Kakashi &amp; Uchiha Obito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>120</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/arklie/gifts">arklie</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was a prompt fic, and takes place in an AU where there is no Kaguya/god tree thing. Obito and Madara were the main villains, they were beaten without the need of Zetsu or an alien god thing. There are five chapters, and I'll post them once a day. </p><p>I hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They stopped for the first time deep into the borders of Fire Country, the forest alive with the sounds of life and the moon gleaming high in the sky.</p><p>"We'll keep going in the morning. We should reach the desert sometime tomorrow afternoon- Gaara-sama's delegation will be waiting at the border." Kakashi folded his arms as he faced into the dark, his back to their campsite and his voice curiously calm. "With any luck, we'll be at the village tomorrow night."</p><p>Obito watched Kakashi's back, and said nothing.</p><p>Kakashi padded silently back to their campsite, folding himself down into a loose ball on the forest floor. He didn't look at Obito as he slid his pack off, instead remaining in a companionable silence. The scratch of his fingers against the ration pack came in tune with the creek of crickets and cicadas, and for several minutes it was just Kakashi, breaking off bits of rice cake and chewing in the firelight.</p><p>"I'll take first watch, then?" Kakashi said finally. He looked at Obito with a raised eyebrow, a book already settled in his lap. "Unless you would rather?"</p><p>Just how they'd used to do it. Kakashi first, and Obito second.</p><p>This time, Rin and Minato weren't here to take the third and fourth.</p><p>"There's not any point, you know."</p><p>Kakashi's eye flicked to him again in an inquisitive light, his hand stilled in mid-page turn.</p><p>"Keeping watch." Obito looked away into the inky darkness, enveloped all around them and the trees that melted into the black. "What exactly is going to be attacking us out here? Even if someone did want to try it, what could they do to us? I'm not sure anyone could kill me even if you let them try."</p><p>He said it for the look on Kakashi's face, really. That was all.</p><p>
  <em>Even if you let them try... because we both know I wouldn't stop them.</em>
</p><p>But as ever, Kakashi refused to rise to the bait.</p><p>The jounin shrugged carelessly, his one eye bright and his face so utterly relaxed it was a night at the onsen at the end of the longest day. "You're right, of course. This is probably the safest either of us have ever been." He smiled at him in the way only Kakashi could, the faintest shiftings of a face that was visible only as little more than an eye. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep without someone watching my back any time soon, though, Obito."</p><p>The crickets kept up with their racket, and Kakashi stayed cross-legged there on the hard-packed earth, turning page after page in the flicker of fire.</p><p>Obito curled on his side, his back to him, and listened until Kakashi came to wake him for his shift.</p><hr/><p>Sunagakure had fared better than most of the other countries, in the aftermath of the war. Their village was small but strong, the people durable, and held together by the care of their beloved Kazekage. They were met at the border by Gaara's personal guard, the quirky brother and the headstrong sister, welcomed as honored guests instead of trespassers, and greetings of respect were exchanged between the three as if they were old friends.</p><p>Obito lingered back, caught between waning trees and hard sands, a hand pressed to the wood.</p><p>It wasn't a question that he did not belong.</p><p>"Gaara-sama has requested that you assist with our greenhouses, a little to the west of the village. They've been on a decline for some time now." Temari pointed into the desert, her fan demarcating a line in the sand that cut as sharply as the wind. "Our plan is to head straight there immediately. Anything that you need from the village, just ask us, and we can retrieve it for you."</p><p>Kakashi bowed his head, perfectly polite. "We thank you for your hospitality."</p><p>Obito still said nothing.</p><p>They weren't to be allowed in the village, then.</p><p>A stupid thing, wasn't it? In his childhood, Konoha and Suna had been bitter enemies, and the border between their countries carved in a river of blood. No guests from Suna were welcomed into Konoha's gates, and no delegations from Konoha were greeted at the desert's borders with respect and friendship. Even the history between their own little group was of discord and violence- Kakashi's father had brought devastation to Suna in the wars, and these two siblings here had spearheaded the invasion that had lead to the death of Sarutobi Hiruzen.</p><p>To be kept at arm's length, eyed with distrust and met with knives... it wasn't an insult, it wasn't cause for complaint. It was what ninja <em>did. </em>This was who they <em>were. </em>It was the world Madara had wanted to end and the dream he had passed onto him.</p><p>But they were in a new world, now. A brighter one. A fledging newborn, still finding its way and growing its roots, but a new world nonetheless.</p><p>Obito simply had no place in it.</p><p>"Let's get going, then," he said. The sand siblings both stiffened together, but Obito ignored them both, and he ignored Kakashi, too, turning his back to all three of them to face the desert with his pack on his shoulders and his hands at his sides. "Unless you all want to get there so late we're stuck in the desert in the middle of the night?"</p><p>Temari and Kankuro followed without delay, stepping together with an almost military precision. They were, at the very least, mercifully quiet.</p><p>Kakashi lingered for just a moment, his grim gaze boring a hole into the back of Obito's head.</p><hr/><p>There were many Rules. The Rules were simple.</p><p>No activation or use of the Sharingan was allowed.</p><p>Since he was unable to deactivate the Rinnegan, his left eye was to be covered at all times, instead. Sasuke said he was looking for ways to switch the eye off. He also said it wasn't looking promising.</p><p>No use of jutsu, unless explicitly sanctioned by his scarecrow of a <em>handler. </em>This included self-defense. This included in the defense of others.</p><p>Follow orders. Follow them <em>all. </em>When in Gaara's custody, Gaara's orders were to be taken with just as much weight as if he were the Hokage. How far this expectation extended was still an up in the air hypothetical, one that the council had purposefully shied away from answering and that Naruto had insisted wasn't necessary. Obito got the feeling that if Gaara were to order him to stand there in his office and kill himself, it was still an order he was meant to follow, and the only thing stopping him from doing it was that his body was physically incapable of being destroyed that easily.</p><p>Unlike other ninja, Obito didn't have the option of defecting if presented with an order that he could not or would not follow.</p><p>The irony was inescapable, of course.</p><p>Uchiha Obito had died at thirteen swearing to be a decent man and friend first, foremost, and always, and to fight as a shinobi and a tool second. Naruto and Kakashi, in this ridiculous bid to try and resurrect that child that had died there in that cave-in, had now turned him into more of a tool than he had ever been.</p><p>The thing was-</p><p>It was all voluntary.</p><p>Obito knew he could escape. He could stand up at any time, say <em>no, </em>warp himself into his kamui dimension, and that would be that. No one, not even Kakashi or Sasuke, could follow him there. He had the power to slip out from Konoha's thumb whenever he wanted and disappear, and from there... whatever he wanted. He could go wherever he wanted, and <em>be</em> whatever he wanted. And Kakashi knew it.</p><p>He hadn't broached the topic. Not once. He hadn't mentioned it back in Konoha, to the council or Naruto or anyone else, and he hadn't brought it up to Obito, either, once they'd left. He had never asked Obito if he was going to leave. He had never asked Obito to stay. He'd just been<em> Kakashi </em>about it, silent and brooding and with judgment in his one eye, the bastard, but he'd known- and he'd left it up to him to decide what to do.</p><p>He <em>trusted him. </em></p><p>Gaara didn't trust him so far as the borders of his village. Konoha didn't trust him to the point that they ordered a good will mission instead of an exile just to get him out of the village. But Kakashi <em>did. </em></p><p>The trust was misplaced.</p><p>Obito didn't stay because he wanted to. He didn't stay out of any loyalty to Konoha, and he didn't stay for Kakashi. Kakashi was quite clearly best off without him.</p><p>He stayed, because he had no idea where else he would go.</p><hr/><p>Obito and Kakashi, as promised, were sent to Sunagakure's greenhouses. It was a smaller, more isolated district, shaded by mountain caves and populated only by a skilled team of water release users and researchers. The village had always struggled with agriculture, and in recent years, even their hospitals had begun to suffer, unable to utilize medical herbs, unable to even research when it was so hard to get their hands on the materials. It was a poor, dilapidated little settlement, with derelict greenhouse after derelict greenhouse passing them by, cultivating drooping vines and white flowers that wilted almost down to their roots.</p><p>Their decline had been years in the making, a tumble downwards that hadn't even been hurt by the war and Obito's violence to the world, simply because they had only barely been clinging to life as it was.</p><p>In other words, it was the perfect task for Uchiha Obito: one of the only people left in the world capable of the wood release.</p><p>And it wound up being not all that bad.</p><p>It was hard, mind-numbing work. He spent most of his time experimenting, testing different methods of climate control, various forms of water storage, how to increase the density of each plot to get the very most that they could out of the limited soil. It was nights passed elbow-deep in textbooks and experiment notebooks, lying on his stomach on the floor of lodgings that were little more than a cave; it was days sitting in hot, sweaty greenhouses squinting into sun as bright as the driven snow, surrounded by a struggling rainbow of newborn flowers all born from his own hand.</p><p>It was something it'd be easy to lose himself in.</p><p>Which was probably exactly what Kakashi was after, if he ever let himself stop to think about it.</p><p>The Sunagakure shinobi they were assisting were grateful enough- or desperate enough- for the help, so much so that they were... polite. That was probably the most accurate word for it, in thinking about it. They provided the materials that he requested, answered his questions when asked, and asked questions of their own in return. On the easier days, some of the team would even try to sit with him. He learned that they were older shinobi, with little combat prowess, and few scars leftover from the battles Obito had spent so long engineering. Instead of being a victim to all that had been done, they had stayed home to guard the village and these greenhouses during the war, looking after this one flourish of life in the desert, and were genuinely thrilled to have him here trying to help.</p><p>He scared them, too.</p><p>They'd heard the stories about him, of course. He may not have hurt these people directly, but they'd heard the stories from those that he had. Whatever it was the people were saying about him, they'd heard it. And even if they hadn't heard the stories-</p><p>Well, just <em>look at him.</em></p><p>Obito had had a long time to get used to his reflection in the mirror. He'd learned to embrace it, many years ago- a face suitably disfigured, a body suitably destroyed. A canvas of destruction visited upon him by their world, and the all the proof that he'd ever need that their world was one that needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.</p><p>Now-</p><p>It wasn't proof of anything, anymore.</p><p>It was evidence of defeat and failure, maybe. The black sheep of the Uchiha, born as the dead last, and he would die a failure. It was ugly. It made the world look twice and pale. It made Kakashi- even <em>Kakashi!- </em>stare silently, his face drawn and sometimes even stricken.</p><p>Every day that he fell just a little bit too far into the desert sun and hardy green life, he'd glimpse his face in the glitter of the water, and be anchored right back down to earth.</p><p>It was okay. He could do this. He didn't mind the work, and there was something nice about doing something being asked to help with something so unflinchingly peaceful.</p><p>But this wasn't who he was.</p><hr/><p>"I'm thinking I'm going to head into the village proper, today," Kakashi began, one morning over breakfast. Kakashi ate, while Obito read. Obito's body didn't need to eat much. "If that's all right with you."</p><p>Obito kept his eyes down, scanning his older notes in the margins of the book. "I don't know why you're asking me," he muttered. "Your mission is to watch me, not the other way around."</p><p>The council would probably be scandalized to have heard Kakashi even suggest such a thing in the first place.</p><p>But Kakashi only shrugged carelessly, and kept on going as if Obito had not just pointed out the critical flaw in his plans. They both knew Obito had no interest in doing anything to hurt anyone. "I spoke to Temari-san, yesterday. They're struggling with some construction projects in the village and she said some help would be really useful- if it goes well, I might start spending some more time there." He lapsed into a thoughtful pause, arms interlaced behind his head and his eye glazed in that very same sleepy disinterest that had used to be so <em>irritating </em>as a child. "They need the help with construction projects, and asked if I could use my earth release to lend a hand."</p><p>Ah. Yes. <em>That makes sense, </em>he mused, turning another page. Sunagakure had always had a dearth of earth users, and struggled with infrastructure because of it. Kakashi would probably be able to really help them. Especially given how long it was looking like they'd be staying-</p><p>"They didn't have many to begin with, but they tell me they lost every earth user they had in the war. It's unfortunate, but I'm really all they've got, at the moment."</p><p>Obito froze, mid-scribble.</p><p>"...if it's all right with you," Kakashi ventured for the second time.</p><p>He clenched his fist. He clenched his fist and he stared at it, the bite of his nails into pasty white skin, flesh that wasn't flesh and blood that wasn't blood.</p><p>"It's fine," he snapped. He spit the words out, disgust coating the insides of his throat and stomach. He was <em>mad, </em>suddenly; he wanted to bodily pick Kakashi up and throw him, he wanted to tear roots into the ground and destroy the city and build a new one in the same breath. He wanted to scream and shout and tear his own Sharingan out of his head, because what was the <em>point </em>in sitting here nurturing a pathetic, piddly rose garden when <em>this very city </em>was a wreck and ruin of his own hand?!</p><p>"If you'd rather-"</p><p>"I <em>said</em> it's <em>fine!" </em></p><p>Kakashi stood silently against the wall, a shadow of a scarecrow in the corner of Obito's eye and nothing more. That dammed wordless, judgmental, masked little boy that Obito had spent so many years wanting to <em>strangle.</em></p><p>He refused to look up from his book even as the shadow passed him by. He heard the almost silent pace of footsteps and after that, the swing of the door, but he kept his gaze down and would not give Kakashi's retreating back the time of day.</p><hr/><p>One of the herbs that had been the very hardest to cultivate was a blue and white flower the Suna shinobi had called the Iron Heart. It was native to the Land of Iron, and grew there almost exclusively, where the samurai cultivated it as a delicacy for its use as a spice and in seasoning. It was an extremeophile, persisting only in the bitter, angry tundra in that frozen wasteland, and a ludicrous luxury only served outside of it in the halls of daiymo and clan heads.</p><p>It wasn't anything that Sunagakure <em>needed. </em>In his role here, to help ensure the steady and stable cultivation of grains, cotton, and medical herbs, it barely even qualified as a silly side project. He and Kakashi could leave the village with the project an utter failure, and the village would be no worse for wear.</p><p>That day, cross-legged on the floor of the greenhouse furthest away in the settlement, his collar turned up against self-reproducing ice crystals embedded in the soil and his nose stinging with the overpowering scent of hardy plant life, he watched their eighth attempt grow.</p><p>Just one. Just one small, frail flower, its velvet soft, violet blue petals unfolding around a snow-white bulb.</p><p>It was useless.</p><p>It wasn't going to help <em>anyone. </em>He'd burned the world to the ground, and now his offering back to them was this meaningless, waste of a plot <em>flower. </em>This <em>thing </em>that he could hand to the people of Suna. Not as food, not as medicine, not as a jutsu, but <em>look at this- it goes great with dango!</em></p><p>There wasn't much point, in him eating dango. Most of his taste buds were dead.</p><p>Obito leveled his gaze down at the tiny thing, and considered tearing up the earth from underneath its feet.</p><p>"Obito-san? I've been looking everywhere for... oh, my!"</p><p>He turned a fraction, just in time to see Asuna, one of the sand shinobi researchers, sliding from curious and searching to bright-eyed and face aglow in the blink of an eye. She dropped to her knees beside him, hands hovering this way and that around the tiny plot; never touching, never prying, but fingertips always stretching as if it took all she had to contain herself. "This is amazing! It finally grew!"</p><p>"Yes," he murmured, shrugging. "It grew."</p><p>
  <em>So what?</em>
</p><p>He could trace its chakra with the Sharingan, and confirm how healthy the flower really was or was not. He could see its chakra even deeper than that with the Rinnegan, and give an estimate of just how long he thought the plant might live.</p><p>Those weren't allowed, so he didn't.</p><p>But Asuna was blind to all that he <em>could </em>do, and instead fawned over the baby flower with all the excitement of a little girl. "Just look at us!" she cried again, "Oh- we've been trying this for <em>years, </em>Obito-san- and you just made it grow! Just like that!"</p><p>"It's not-"</p><p>
  <em>"Thank you!"</em>
</p><p>Asuna threw her arms around his shoulders, squeezing tight and smiling brilliantly from top to bottom, and yanked him into a hug.</p><p>Butterflies swam in his stomach.</p><p>"It's- s' not-"</p><p>"It's brilliant!" Asuna insisted, pulling back to treat him to another sunny, beaming grin. "Just wait until the others see!"</p><p>"But it's..." The words stayed spluttered and muffled as he just sat there, shellshocked and tongue-tied and feeling as if his head had been stuffed with cotton candy. "It's not even... it can't <em>do anything. </em>It's not important, it's not going to help anyone, it's just... it's just a<em> flower."</em></p><p>Rin had loved flowers.</p><p>Asuna shrugged again, her eyes shining. "So?" She reached out with one hand, careful fingers passing over the spread of each of the petals, one by one. "Who said it had to be anything amazing? Or ground-breaking? We've been trying to pull this off for years, Obito-san... what you've pulled off here is going to make our whole team very, very happy! Oh, what else is there? What else is there?"</p><p>Obito stared, the warmth of Asuna's hand and the light of her smile pressed into him, all around- and between them, the flower flourished just a little more.</p><hr/><p>That night- well after the heat of the desert had frozen into a biting cold, and even longer after the sun had set- Kakashi came back.</p><p>He did nothing to break their pre-established pattern of mutual habitation. He did nothing to bring up this morning, or what he had spent today doing. He made no effort to acknowledge Obito's existence at all. The man simply sidled inside with that easygoing, lazy pace, a physical drawl, his masked nose buried in a book and his shoulders slumped so aggressively they were just about pinned to his ears.</p><p>And like that, he traipsed on right past Obito, sunk himself onto his bed, and went lax.</p><p>Just like that.</p><p>This time, it was Kakashi turning pages in the silence.</p><p>This silence between them- this book-infested, dusty, moldy silence, in dark caves and astride campfires and nothing else. This quiet that had persisted for months, now, an impossible void filled with nothing meaningful or significant at all, because Kakashi wouldn't dare push him and Obito didn't know what to say.</p><p>He closed his eye, his one, lone eye, and breathed.</p><p>"How- er... how was it?"</p><p>He felt Kakashi stiffen from across the room.</p><p>"...good," the jounin answered, his voice determinedly light. "It was- good. Long." He flipped a page in a loud crinkle, the noise otherwise unbearable in the suffocating quiet. "My back is sore, to be quite honest. Reminded me why I preferred to send Yamato off to do this, in Konoha."</p><p>The uncomfortable quiet settled between them again.</p><p>For the first time, Obito decided to take another step forward.</p><p>Nothing amazing. Nothing ground-breaking.</p><p>Just a step.</p><p>"Your earth release is the problem."</p><p>"It's-" Kakashi stopped short, going still. He breathed in sharply and stared at Obito in wordless surprise. "<em>What?"</em></p><p>"Your earth release," he repeated. Actually turning to face Kakashi was too much, so he kept his eye down on his book, instead, splaying the motions out with his hands. "You learned it from Minato. But he specialized in wind jutsu; earth was his natural opposite. You always use earth jutsu with your arms, but in Iwagakure, they focus on your stance, and your hands." He traced another useless pattern into his book, crinkling the page this way, then that. "You'd be surprised how much you pick up on, when you spend your time tagging along with Deidara."</p><p>Another few moments passed by between them. Obito's felt dry and dusty and he gritted his teeth, his skin crawling. It was unbearably uncomfortable, and almost immediately, he wished he hadn't said anything at all.</p><p>"...Thank you," Kakashi finally replied, sounding nonplussed. "That will- certainly be helpful. Thank you."</p><p>He wanted this conversation to stop already. He wanted to rewind it all the way back until none of this had ever happened, to never have come to Suna; to never have even survived the fourth war at all.</p><p>"Or you're just getting old, old man." He swallowed, slipping past another page."That could be it, too."</p><p>"Aren't you a year older than I am?"</p><p>"Then what's with the grey hair, scarecrow?"</p><p>Kakashi's faint grin bored into the back of his head, and he breathed easier again.</p><p>"Actually," Kakashi said after several moments, his voice a soft, droll drawl, "in the village today, I spoke with Gaara-sama. They're holding an annual festival tomorrow." He paused, the mattress creaking noisily as he shifted. "We're invited."</p><p>For the second time that day, Obito froze.</p><p>Kakashi sounded unbearably casual about it. Because <em>of course </em>he did; casual enough that it took him a heartbeat to be anything but shellshocked. A festival. A celebration. And he had been <em>asked </em>to come. "I thought I wasn't welcome in the village."</p><p>"Who told you that?"</p><p>When Obito did not reply, Kakashi just shrugged, settling himself back down to return to his book. "It's not mandatory, of course. The invitation was merely extended, and it's up to us if we want to take it. He said that if you were too busy with your projects out here, he would understand."</p><p>A festival. In the village. A festival for those who had just survived the biggest war their world had ever seen, and were now going hold some sort of ramshackle celebration out of all they had left. And for some reason, the Kazekage said he was invited.</p><p>A superficial gesture, most likely. A polite invitation extended because that was what they were supposed to do, especially in this new era of peace; they had been asked here as diplomatic guests on a good will mission, so the Kage was just acknowledging their presence here in the proper manner. He had no doubt that they'd all be much happier if he did not come. <em>He </em>would probably be much happier to just stay right here and work in the greenhouses.</p><p>One step at a time.</p><p>"Okay," he said flatly, and turned another page.</p><p>Okay.</p><hr/><p>Every autumn, Sunagakure held an annual festival to herald and celebrate the beginning of their short but violent wet season. It was an angry storm of monsoons, that turned the desert to mud and flash floods, but one that kept their village alive all the same, and it was as much a celebration as it was recognition of their renewed, constant fight to survive. Everyone was wearing blue and white, azure fireworks set off in the sky, and there was a spectacle going on with a water dragon jutsu that he was <em>pretty sure </em>Kakashi was almost entirely responsible for.</p><p>Obito wasn't a fan of the rain, personally. He'd spent most of the worst years of his life hunkered down in the perpetual rains of Amegakure.</p><p>He'd had enough rain for a lifetime.</p><p>It was still a nice enough festival, he supposed. He didn't have a frame of reference, because he hadn't been to one since he was a child. But it seemed pleasant enough. Music and lights around every corner, vendors with festival food and bright little toys for the kids, plenty of families.</p><p>And it could not have been clearer that Obito's first impression had been right all along.</p><p>He wasn't welcome here.</p><p>Kakashi was. Plenty of people were thrilled to see him, waving from across the street or calling out or even coming over to shake his hand, and that alone- that was a miracle enough. Just one year before Kakashi's stupid masked face wouldn't have been safe to show anywhere in this village, and now the veterans of the Allied Shinobi Force were all one and the same.</p><p>Those same shinobi took one look at Obito, and stayed very firmly on the other side of the street.</p><p>In the bright glimmer of the festival lights, a spotlight that glinted in Kakashi's eye and on the kunai of the ANBU following every step they took, it was as if every sentiment, every ill wish, every last <em>thought </em>was on display- and it was clearer with each turn they took.</p><p><em>These </em>were the shinobi he'd fought against. <em>These, </em>right here, were the lives systematically spent years planning to dismantle, and used an entire war to destroy.</p><p>He wanted to- to <em>disappear. </em></p><p>Nothing as violent or difficult as it would be to kill himself; nothing as destructive as it would be to hurt someone else, and certainly not to see the look on Kakashi's face when he did it. But to just close his eyes and willfully cease to exist. A permanent void and unfeeling nothingness. An <em>end. </em></p><p>"Obito, Kakashi- I'm glad you could make it. It's good to see you both looking well."</p><p>They had turned another corner together, and this time, came face to face with the Kazekage.</p><p>Gaara was walking with his siblings, mingling with the same crowds as everybody else. He looked tired, but happy, trailed by an ANBU guard of his own, and raised a hand in greeting as Kakashi once again led the way forward.</p><p>"Please," Gaara said, "Join me. I would be honored."</p><p>It was Kakashi who answered again; Kakashi, after glancing at Obito just out of the corner of his eye, his masked face unreadable and his eye sharp. "The honor is all ours, Gaara-sama," he returned, bowing his head, but he never fully looked away from Obito. Ensuring that this was all right, that this was something that he wanted to do, and just-</p><p>Gods, he wanted to <em>scream.</em></p><p>"It's going well, this year," Gaara said, clasping his hands behind his back. "I've heard you've made a lot of progress with a water storage and purification system, as well. When the rains come, we'll be able to test it. Your efforts here have been admirable, Obito."</p><p>"It's... nothing." He swallowed uncomfortably, averting his eye. "I'm just completing the mission."</p><p>"A mission that countless others before you have failed. Your efforts are going to be a great asset to us in the future."</p><p>"Our villages have always worked best together," Kakashi said, and something about Gaara's returned, perfectly polite smile made him feel sick.</p><p>They walked a little ways together, Kakashi talking with the three sand siblings while he simply watched. With Gaara, now, they were stopped much more often, shinobi and civilians alike speaking up with their eyes lighting up at the sight of their beloved Kazekage, and their wariness of Obito was no longer enough to stop any from approach. They all but fawned over him, an adoration that was beyond even what Obito had remembered Sarutobi or Minato earning from his own village, and standing next to Gaara, he even earned a few uncomfortable smiles of his own. The whispering stopped.</p><p>Not everyone he saw looked happy, though.</p><p>There were- holes. Everywhere he looked, someone was missing; a family of a mother and her young son, with no father in sight. A man standing on his own, eyes downcast and shoulders heavy, with a wedding ring turned miserably about one finger. Many people that they passed wore black scarves or gloves over yukatas, and more than once, Obito and Kakashi moved by sights that looked closer to a memorial than a celebration.</p><p>On one corner was a painfully small, redheaded little boy, his cheeks flushed and his mouth turned low. One hand each caught on either side by who could only be his grandparents.</p><p>Obito looked at him, and remembered Sasori.</p><p>"I'm afraid there's something I need to go supervise, now," Gaara spoke up, when they'd ambled much close into the village. "The perils of being the Kazekage. I hope you have a pleasant rest of the evening. Before I go-" He stepped away for a moment, turning towards one of the ever-present vendors with arrays of festival food, and returned to hold out two small fruits, one to him, and one to Kakashi. They looked like very small watermelons, and most of the people they'd passed thus far had been eating one or two. "This is a guava. It used to be traditional Suna hospitality that we'd serve one to any visitors to our village, but we haven't been able to for a while, now- perhaps with the progress you two have made in our greenhouses, we'll be able to again."</p><p>Kakashi and Gaara exchanged politely bowed heads, Obito only managing to kick himself enough to reach his hand out a split second before Kakashi did it for him. The Kazekage and his guards exchanged their farewells, and with that, Obito was left standing on the side of the road, a fruit clutched numbly in his hand and gaping upon being struck dumb.</p><p>"Something wrong?" Kakashi asked, with Gaara gone. He carved off a piece with his thumb, slipping it under his mask. "Obito?"</p><p>"I don't... I'm..." The words got stuck and couldn't come out, and Obito squeezed his eyes shut, forcing a suddenly ragged breath through clenched teeth. "I don't <em>understand."</em></p><p>"Hm?"</p><p>"Why is Gaara- why is everyone-" There wasn't words for it and he gestured uselessly, gestured with the hand holding the ridiculous fruit. "Doesn't he have any idea who I am?!"</p><p>It was nonsense, because Gaara <em>did. </em>Gaara knew exactly who he was and what he was capable of. He had been a shadow of so much of Gaara's life in particular in the worst ways possible, and now here he was, being welcomed into his home and given <em>fruit.</em></p><p>What the hell was he supposed to think?!</p><p>Kakashi paused next to him, his eye still unreadable. He looked away grimly to carve off another section of guava. "I'm not sure how much you know about this village," he said at length. "But Gaara-sama did some pretty terrible things, when he was much younger. Things only started to change when he decided to change himself, and focused everything that he had on the people of this village. There's a reason why everyone here loves him as much as they do." He paused again, looking at Obito very, very carefully.</p><p>"He's been where you are," he said, "and he knows what it takes to come out the other side."</p><p>He tossed the guava between his hands again, now half-eaten, and his eye crinkled in a very faint smile. Then, nudging one hand against Obito's shoulder, he led him on deeper into the festival.</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for all the comments/kudos!!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Seven months after setting out from Konoha, Obito and Kakashi left the desert with a massive collection of scrolls on puppeteering, their caves of greenhouses catapulted into a few steps shy of a rainforest, and an extended welcome to please come back to visit at any time.</p><p>It had been quite possibly the oddest seven months of his life, and despite his initial extreme reluctance about being sent out on this mission at all- Obito was now actually looking forward to continuing it.</p><hr/><p>Their next destination was Kumogakure. It was the village furthest from where they were now, but Kakashi had been in contact with Naruto, and for whatever reason, it sounded as if that was where they were most needed next. Even if Obito had been in a position to argue, which he wasn't, he would've kept quiet.</p><p>He'd spent more than enough time in Kiri and Iwa, masquerading as Madara. He was relieved for the chance to go just about anywhere else first. Clearly, so was Kakashi.</p><p>"I'm hoping they'll be willing to share a few hidden techniques. In the spirit of newfound diplomacy, of course- do you know how long I've wanted to learn black lightning?" He grinned beneath his mask, lingering on his tree just long enough to raise an eyebrow back in Obito's direction. "Have you got any inklings into how it works? Did you ever spend that much time there?"</p><p>"Kakashi."</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Kumogakure is known for being home to a giant mutant octopus the size of a small mountain that would probably eat any Sharingan user on sight."</p><p>Kakashi's eye blinked, a single flutter. He stilled, looking rather wrong-footed, and Obito couldn't help a grin of his own.</p><p>"So, uh- no. Never was that high on my list of <em>vacation spots</em>." He folded his arms, resisting a shudder. He <em>really </em>hoped Gyuuki wasn't going to be around, or if he was, that he found some way to manage to stay away from him. "Besides, I hate the cold."</p><p>"Yes, that's true. You always did complain about the snow, didn't you?" Kakashi led them both to slow down, a little, taking them to stand at the very edge of the hill, looking down into Lightning Country. His face was shrouded and pale, and his eye dimmed, a shadow just as dark as his mask. "I really do need to learn something new here. Don't mention it to the Raikage, but your eye... I'm keeping it covered, but I don't know how much it's got left in it. It's almost blind. Chidori isn't safe, anymore."</p><p>"...Oh."</p><p>Obito looked away, suddenly intensely uncomfortable. He trailed a hand under his eye, and for a moment, was stricken with the urge to offer it for free.</p><p>It wasn't as if he'd ever be allowed to use it again. It wasn't as if he ever <em>wanted </em>to use it again.</p><p>If anyone ever asked his opinion, it'd probably really be best if they just let the horrible eyes die out with him and Sasuke. The best thing he'd ever done with them was give one to Kakashi.</p><p>Kakashi cleared his throat in the sudden silence, easy smile back on as he stood there, relaxed and calm as could be. "Well, come on, then," he cajoled, falling back into step at Obito's side. "Darui's waiting for us, and if I've got any hope of learning his techniques, we probably shouldn't get lost along the road of life, hmm?"</p><p>He said it with a hand on Obito's shoulder and a grin on his face. It was impossible and overwhelming and too much to take, and walking along side him again felt like he'd just been force-fed a kunai point-first.</p><hr/><p>Kumogakure, like Sunagakure, had been relatively isolated from the worst effects of the war. The Raikage had also always been a particularly brand of terrifying, unable to be intimidated or manipulated no matter the fight- there was a reason why Obito had avoided this particular village like his life had depended on it- and seemed to have focused any lingering resentments of his on Sasuke. It wasn't so much that he was glad to have Obito in the village, but he hadn't gone out of his way to make life here miserable, either.</p><p>He'd just informed Obito day one that he wouldn't hesitate to break him in half, good will mission or no, while his mutant octopus of a brother waved in the background.</p><p>He missed Suna.</p><p>Kakashi, too, had clearly not been exaggerating for Obito's sake. After they'd settled in, he'd gone after the archives almost immediately, searching and training to develop an alternative due to the coming blindness in his eye. Somewhat predictably, the Raikage had not at all been open to teaching him his signature jutsu, but that hadn't stopped Kakashi. He'd made himself busy and scarce at the same time, excited almost as a kid in a candy shop... as much as Kakashi was capable of. Because Obito had seen him as an actual kid in an actual candy shop, and the comparison was almost a little sad, because the extent of it was little more than the brightness in his eye and an extra bounce to his step.</p><p>One day, he'd actually watched Kakashi train, gathering a collection of dusty scrolls to translate and glance outside. And it had been very easy to see that Kakashi's assessment had been right. His left eye was almost blind, and without the use of the Sharingan, he just couldn't see fast enough to keep up with his own Chakra.</p><p>His attempt at a Chidori had nearly ended in him ramming headfirst into a training dummy.</p><p>Obito had quit watching him train, after that. It was something he would've been thrilled to tease him at before. <em>Before </em>he would've jumped down to the training field himself to poke Kakashi's spread-eagled form with a stick, but now it was just-</p><p>There was nothing to be done to fix this, anymore. Nothing at all.</p><p>But Kakashi was happy to be here, in Kumo, and as the weeks passed, Obito found that he was, too.</p><p>It had been almost a year, now, since the end of the war. Kumogakure had all but finished most of its own initial restoration efforts, by now, and Obito's particular expertise in building houses or optimizing greenhouses was not needed. Instead, they had asked for Obito's help in rebuilding their archives, not the buildings themselves but reconstructing the knowledge in scrolls that had been lost. It was similar work as what they'd done in Suna- lots of studying books in dark rooms, lots of sketching out theory, very little work that actually required the use of his hands or Chakra.</p><p>This time, he was pretty damn sure it was intentional, in that the Raikage did not trust him as far as he could throw him. The Raikage was willing to indulge Naruto in letting him into his village, but there was a line between indulgence, and being willing to let him use jutsu right in the middle of his village.</p><p>The dullness of it... was starting to chafe, a little.</p><p>He knew how much <em>more </em>he could do. He knew how much <em>more </em>he was able to help the world at large. He knew how much was left still bleeding and how much power was in his hands to at least try to make some of it right- and here he was. Stuck again in some dark basement, reading a musty old scroll by firelight. He'd been stuck sitting in the end of the dark since the end of the war, and when finally given the chance to do something beyond either sit there and kill himself, it had turned out to be just more sitting in the dark.</p><p>It wouldn't have been his first choice, for what to do. No.</p><p>But that was exactly the point, really- it <em>wasn't </em>his choice, and if this was or rotting in a jail cell were the options that he had, then this was just he'd take.</p><p>He didn't have a choice, and he probably wasn't going to ever get one.</p><hr/><p>The fourth shinobi war had ended for the world in early summer. It ended against Obito's will in every way, with Madara killed for the second time, the Edo Tensei sealed, and Naruto and Sasuke linking arms together to forcibly declare the war over. Obito had lost in every definable way, the battle coming to an end with Kakashi on his knees on top of him and Minato weaving the signs for a sealing jutsu above them.</p><p>That had been the end, he'd thought.</p><p>Except it <em>wasn't. </em></p><p>He still didn't know exactly who it was that had spoken up for him and saved his life- against his will yet again. He didn't know why an executioner's knife had been exchanged for a straitjacket and a jail cell, and for the love of god, he didn't know why the <em>hell </em>Kakashi had ever thought that was what he would want. He would've killed himself in a heartbeat if he'd had the ability to.</p><p>But even that much ability had been robbed from him, and instead?</p><p>In an instant, a world of influence and power had been suffocated into nothing, and the only thread left tying him to an existence beyond rotting away in a hole had been Kakashi.</p><p>He didn't know why. But Kakashi had never given up on him. Kakashi, <em>Kakashi </em>had just kept <em>showing up. </em>Even when Obito had shouted at him to go away. Even when Obito had howled at him that he hated him and wanted him to die. Even when all of Kakashi's strained, exhausted assurances that he was trying to work something out, that he and Naruto would fix this, had been met day after day with Obito screaming that he didn't want it to be fixed.</p><p>The war had ended for the world in early summer, and it had kept going for Obito in that timeless, dark cell, for many months more.</p><p>The end had come without warning. The last thing that Obito remembered was that Kakashi's visit, for once, had not been just Kakashi. Kakashi's steps had been dogged by Naruto, the boy older, now, and the spitting image of his father, now in the Hokage's cloak.</p><p>And that was it.</p><p>The next thing he knew, he was waking up with his limbs free for the first time in months, light searing into his eyes and a fresh pain in his head, and Kakashi's footsteps, again nearby.</p><p>"Obito? <em>Obito.</em> How do you feel?"</p><p>New pain spiked through his head again, a raw, pounding burn. He stared at Kakashi's blurry outline, a shock of grey hair and a darker, formless face. "...Fine," he rasped, nonplussed. A numb sense of trepidation started to brew and infect him, from his hands down to his stomach to his very bone. "What's... what's going on?"</p><p>Kakashi's outline turned away, muttering something, giving Obito the time to rub his eyes and sit up. There was a new residue of Chakra on him, he could feel it, burning in his head. Something that made his skin crawl.</p><p>Something that he'd never wanted, because this whole time, all he'd been asking for was to just be let to die.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Kakashi was saying, his voice harsh. "It's not how I would've wanted it. I voted no, but I was only one vote."</p><p>"Not how you would've wanted <em>what?" </em>It hurt, but there was a headband covering his left eye, forcibly blinding the Rinnegan and leaving his entire vision muted and grey. His limbs were <em>free. </em>His Sharingan was <em>unsealed. </em>What was...? Obito sat straighter and away from Kakashi, apprehension knotting in his throat. "What have you <em>done? </em>I've told you, Kakashi, I don't want this! Whatever this is-!"</p><p>Kakashi looked away, the little of his face that was visible shrouding. He was pale and grim, almost vibrating with tension, but Obito was still so thoroughly shellshocked he barely had the presence of mind to think.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Kakashi said again, meeting Obito's eye. Look at the two of them now, both with an eye covered, both with an eye scarred. "This was the only compromise they would agree on. It was really this or nothing, I think, and- Naruto really thought this was the best way. That it'd be all right, if it was me."</p><p>Obito did not like the sound of any of this at all.</p><p>"They gave you," Kakashi started, then stopped. He glowered at his hand, as if it had done something deeply offensive, his throat moving in a painful swallow under his mask. "They gave you the Caged Bird Seal."</p><p>He stopped talking after that, simply watching Obito in silence. Clearly, he knew that he did not need to explain any more than that. And he was right. He didn't.</p><p>The Caged Bird Seal: the barbaric seal utilized by the Hyuuga clan against their Branch family members. As a child, it had been simply a fact of life, and one that he'd shrugged at, regardless. The dealings of another clan weren't exactly something discussed with him. As an adult-</p><p>It hardly ranked, on the list of terrible things this village did. Even just stacking it against the way Konoha treated the Uchiha, this was barely even worth mentioning.</p><p>It had been just another stick on the pile, of the reasons why the world was better off without this village existing at all.</p><p>And now, he had one.</p><p>Obito felt his forehead with his thumb, tracing over the new mark with his thumb. It was actually a good idea- he could admit that much. Almost ingenious. When activated, the seal seared and destroyed the eyes, their chakra system, and the brain itself.</p><p>Which was just about the only surefire way he could think of, to kill himself.</p><p>Took them long enough.</p><p>He dropped his hand, looking back to Kakashi instead. The jounin was apprehensive, watching him on a knife's edge, and suddenly, Obito just wanted to laugh.</p><p>"What is it?" He leaned back, staring right back to Kakashi's eye in an unspoken challenge. "You finally managed something competent, for a change? You still don't like that I'm not your old friend anymore?"</p><p>Kakashi's eye darkened. "It's permanent," he said quietly. "You know we can't remove that seal, now. It's there for life."</p><p>"Considering I've been asking you for months to just <em>get it over with </em>and <em>kill me, </em>I don't really see what the problem is."</p><p>He said it to hurt him. He said it because he knew that was the very last thing Kakashi wanted to hear, and out of all the things left in the world, <em>that </em>was the one that would hurt him the most. He wanted it to hurt and he wanted to <em>see it.</em></p><p>It didn't work.</p><p>Kakashi just sat there and looked at him. Just that one, lone eye visible, and every bit as silent and grim as before. It was the same as when they were kids. Obito would goad him and challenge him and all but punch him to <em>force </em>that stupid, smug brat to give him <em>something- </em>and he never did. He never reacted at all.</p><p>And he didn't react now.</p><p>He listened to him snarl <em>kill me, </em>and just sat there, looked at him, and kept silent.</p><p>Obito bared his teeth and wanted to tear him apart. For a moment, he actually considered doing it. He saw red and his blood pounded and for that one moment, he saw himself leaping forward and going for Kakashi's throat.</p><p>Then the seal would activate, and every nerve in his horrible head would be fried before he hit the ground.</p><p>Good.</p><p>
  <em>Good.</em>
</p><p>"Well?" Obito hissed, throwing himself back in sheer disgust. "Who controls the seal, then? Since you're so insistent on keeping me around- who's supposed to be my <em>handler</em> and keep Konoha's black sheep in line?"</p><p>In retrospect, it was obvious. It had all been so very obvious, all from the very beginning.</p><p>Kakashi looked at him, his eye flat and full of all of the regret in the world, and said, "I am."</p><hr/><p>Obito and Kakashi found their routine together in Kumo just as they had in Suna. It was miserable and constantly cold and mind-numbingly boring, for Obito, and grueling, ceaseless training for Kakashi, but as long as they were stuck here, they both had no choice but to just make the most of it.</p><p>One day, Kakashi came back even later than usual, dragging his feet and his shoulders slumped, not with disappointment, but exhaustion. His hair stood up on end and a hand was charred from overuse of lightning, and he barely even looked at Obito as he stumbled to bed, without stopping to eat or undress.</p><p>Obito's body needed- less. Less of everything. Food, sleep, energy. Kakashi, on the other hand, now seemed to need <em>more. </em>He tired easier, now, like the war had taken some permanent reserve of energy from him and was never going to give it back.</p><p>He looked older, now. Finally as old as his silver hair.</p><p>It wasn't remotely fair, for either of them. But this was how it was.</p><p>Obito kept on translating by candlelight, for a while. He was bored out of his skull, but it was either this or nothing at all, and at this point, the sooner they finished up in Kumogakure, the better. Both of them needed to be here, but after this long, both of them were getting to the ends of their ropes.</p><p>Kakashi had only been back for about an hour- Obito just turning the page to start on the history of Kumogakure dojutsu- when the jounin twitched in bed, hard. He jerked onto his side, perfectly still, panting fast and deep and little more than an outline in the dark.</p><p>Obito watched, half-blind and Sharingan-less, as Kakashi rolled all the way upright. He staggered for a moment, still little more than a silhouette.</p><p>Without a word, Kakashi padded to the sink, rolled down his mask, and quietly threw up.</p><p>This time, Obito very quickly had to turn his gaze away. He couldn't focus on the scroll anymore, couldn't hear anything at all but the faint sounds behind him. Running water, cloth rustling as Kakashi fixed his mask, footsteps again.</p><p>All still without speaking, Kakashi crossed back across the room. He hesitated behind him, standing there uncertainly and silent in the doorway, like he couldn't quite decide where he wanted to go.</p><p>Then, he just walked in, and sat down right across from him.</p><p>His eye looked unimaginably heavy, wearier than he had ever seen, from Kakashi. It was something that Obito never wanted to see from him ever again.</p><p>"You were there," Kakashi said, without preamble. "When Rin died. "</p><p>It was a statement, not a question. Obito nodded anyway, barely able to look at him. Yes. He'd been there. He'd seen it. He'd sat there in Rin and Kakashi's blood and he'd waited for Minato to find them so he could take Kakashi and Rin's body home. He'd wanted to kill Kakashi and he'd wanted to kill himself. He'd felt every excruciating minute of it.</p><p>"The Sharingan," Kakashi said again, not quite meeting his eye. "It makes it worse. Doesn't it?"</p><p>Yes. It did.</p><p>They'd both been there, that day, and they'd both seen it. They'd seen it with the eye that never forgets, and <em>that moment, </em>Kakashi's hand buried in Rin's chest, was burned into both their heads now forever. He could claw out his own eye with his hands, and Kakashi could lose sight in his, and it wouldn't matter. The memory was there and it was never going away.</p><p>"I've never actually dreamed about it. Not like you." Obito ran his thumb along the edge of the book, bitterness coalescing at the back of his throat. "I was making a world where she'd be alive again. Where none of this would ever have happened. I remembered it, but it wasn't important, it wasn't <em>real, </em>it was never... like this."</p><p>
  <em>It was never like you.</em>
</p><p>Another moment of silence passed between them. Kakashi's voice was low, when he spoke again, and rough, but without hesitation. "It wasn't a world Rin would've wanted."</p><p>Yeah. Apparently it wasn't.</p><p>He glanced at Kakashi out of the corner of his eye, the jounin still barely more than a dark outline, his hair stood up and a hand over his face. Something ached, deep in the center of his chest, and he opened his mouth again just started talking.</p><p>"I saw you, you know. I watched you. In Konoha- after Rin." He swallowed painfully hard, the memory of it scraping at the inside of his skull. "I wanted to talk to you so many times. I wanted to come out and talk to you and to Sensei, to... I was doing it for <em>you</em>. For all of us, I wanted to make it right for <em>all of us</em>, not just me, I thought-" He stared at Kakashi, then back down again, something about the look on his face too unbearable to take.</p><p>"I thought I was helping you," he said finally, his voice hollow. "I never... actually wanted to hurt you. I know it wasn't your fault."</p><p>There it was.</p><p>Rin had died because she'd made the decision to jump in front of Kakashi's hand. He'd known that all along, and it was true- he'd never actually <em>blamed </em>Kakashi for it. It was Kakashi's forced hand in her chest that had made every decision for him. Rin wasn't just dead, Rin hadn't been just murdered in the worst, most senseless, devastatingly <em>useless </em>way, but Kakashi had been used to do it. The world had taken everything from him, everything from Rin, and everything from Kakashi, and all in the cruelest, most unforgiving way that it could.</p><p>Was it so very wrong that he had then given up on the world?</p><p>He'd never told Kakashi any of this before. The war felt like a fever dream to him now, a hazy recollection blinded and crazed by the sheer scope of the Juubi's power; he'd known Kakashi had thought it was his fault and he'd let him do it. Part of him had even enjoyed it. He'd been bleeding inside and wanted to make Kakashi bleed too.</p><p>And now it had been months and months, and they still hadn't talked about it, had they? Not once. Obito knew it was something he should've said, Rin's death always between them taking up enough space to crush the air out of the room, and this was the damn heart of the matter, <em>I know it's not your fault. You didn't kill her. </em></p><p>Still silently, all without a single word needing to be spoken, Kakashi moved to join Obito on his side of the table. He sat next to him and took the bundle of scrolls from him, sliding the pen from his clenched fingers, bit by bit, so close that their shoulders were touching and the warmth of a living, breathing, functioning human body was inescapable. Kakashi slid everything from him without a word and took over just where Obito had left off, and something gave; something finally just <em>broke. </em>His head fell and he pressed it to Kakashi's shoulder, and Kakashi let him, and that was it.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he choked. "I'm... I'm so sorry."</p><p>Kakashi still didn't say anything. He just sat there, that damn eye reflecting a world of pain and hurt, but none of it at him. Obito sucked in another breath, pressing his face to the crook of his neck, and Kakashi let him do it. The pen scratched on other the previously abandoned scroll, but one loose arm wrapped soundlessly around Obito's back.</p><p>They sat there together for the rest of the night, fleeing nightmares and unrest, and haunted for the rest of their lives by what could never be taken back. But they faced it together, Kakashi's arm around him and Obito's half-dead face pressed to his neck, and that was enough.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for all the comments/kudos!!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Obito and Kakashi reached the borders of Land of Water, their welcoming committee was the Mizukage herself, and four of her elite guard.</p><p>By the way Kakashi glanced at Obito, his shoulders tense and his eye narrowing, it was not the greeting that he had been told to expect.</p><p>"Mizukage-sama," he said slowly, his voice wary. They approached the border together with the same pace that they had all the others, but Kakashi lingered just a little bit ahead of him, now, on the very edge of the proverbial cliff. "You certainly didn't have to come all this way to greet us yourself. We're honored."</p><p>Kakashi stopped a few steps south of crossing the borders into the country. It very clearly was not an accident.</p><p>The Mizukage glanced between them both with icy eyes, her four faceless, masked guards motionless at her back. Her face was smooth as stone. "Kakashi," she began. "I wanted to be sure that there would be absolutely no misunderstandings." She took a breath, her gaze flickering between the jounin and Obito and back again. "Go home."</p><p>"...Mizukage-sama?"</p><p>"I know why you're here," she continued flatly. "Naruto told us that you would be coming and the circumstances of your- good will mission, he said." Her lips twitched, as if telling them just what exactly she thought of those words, and their unasked for presence here<em>. </em>"The gesture is appreciated. However, Kirigakure has decided that we are doing just fine on our own. As we don't require assistance, you are free to return home."</p><p>It clearly wasn't a request.</p><p>And it wasn't anything that Obito had any intention of refusing. Naruto's idea of a good will mission was one thing, but forcibly injecting himself where he was not wanted wasn't going to engender any good will anywhere.</p><p><em>Especially </em>in the former Village of the Bloody Mist.</p><p>But Kakashi clearly was not about to leave well enough alone.</p><p>"I... see," he said, his voice careful and slow. With his mask and headband, it was always impossible to tell what he was thinking, but now everything about him was as unreadable as a rock. "We're glad that Kirigakure is doing so well. But, perhaps there is still some effort we can put our skills towards- we're only here to help, and-"</p><p>"If Naruto wants to forcibly annex Kirigakure, title himself Mizukage, and write the laws for our country, then he is welcome to it. Clearly, we aren't in any position to stop him. But as long as we maintain any illusion of independence, Uchiha Obito isn't welcome past our borders." She stopped in deadly silence, her eyes flashing and her jaw clenched tight. "If you would like to visit our country, Kakashi, then you are, of course, welcome at any time."</p><p>That was that, then.</p><p>To be frank about it, Obito was relieved. He hadn't been looking forward to spending time in Kirigakure, either.</p><p>The biggest surprise was really just that Kiri had been the first village to do this.</p><p>"Kakashi," he cajoled, touching a hand to his elbow. "Come on. Let's just go."</p><p>But Kakashi shrugged out of the way and didn't even look at him, bristling almost as an angry cat. "Wait a moment, here- we're here to help! You've heard from Suna and Kumo, haven't you? Our mission-"</p><p>"I know what your <em>mission is," </em>the Mizukage snapped. "And I also know that <em>your friend </em>assassinated my predecessor, and is singlehandedly responsible for the darkest period of our village's history. If Naruto has decided to forgive and forget, then we clearly lack the power to disagree. But that does <em>not</em> mean that you can require us to do the same!"</p><p>Silence settled between the two, drawn thickly on the invisible line of the country's border. Kakashi and Mei stood across from each other in perfect silence, the Mizukage holding her ground while his friend- his friend? Whatever it was that Kakashi was to him- stared right back, silent and still and tense as a board, and all but radiating discontent.</p><p>It was a dangerous and precarious ground. If Kakashi decided to press the point, there was absolutely nothing the Mizukage could do, and they all knew it. The Mizukage and her ANBU could not touch him- <em>literally. </em>It was no act of war; there was no resistance that she could maintain that would hold. If Naruto wanted something, Naruto was just so ludicrously powerful now that he would get it. If Naruto told her to let them in, then she had no choice but to yield.</p><p>That Obito was here with Kakashi at all, walking and relatively free, was living proof of that fact.</p><p>The Mizukage had nothing to fall back on, and only the hope that Kakashi was smart enough to know that this was a precedent that they didn't want to set.</p><p>Yet by the look on his face...</p><p>For the love of god, no. No. Kakashi wasn't going to be <em>stupid </em>enough to do this for him.</p><p><em>"Kakashi," </em>Obito hissed, hauling on his sleeve again. "Leave it <em>alone! </em>Kakashi!"</p><p>For several moments on, Obito really thought Kakashi wasn't going to give.</p><p>And then, the tension passed.</p><p>The jounin went soft by degrees, a mechanical, systematic sort of loosening. "Of course," he said stiffly, bowing his head. He looked angry, still, a low thrum of hostility buzzing just under the surface, but he kept his hands down and his voice calm. "Of course we will respect your wishes, Mizukage-sama."</p><p>Relief unfolded in his chest as a prickly flower, thorns stabbing him inside and out. This time, Obito was the one to lead as he turned his back on Kirigakure, and yanked Kakashi on his heels without looking back.</p><hr/><p>That night, they made camp along the coast, just far enough out that they could watch the lights and shadows of the ships passing through the Land of Water's borders. Kakashi tended the fire with an almost aggressive vehemence, his lone eye stormy and flickered with shadows, and so silent it was a reminder of the old Kakashi. The person that Obito had known, before this softer, laxer creature had moved in in his place. The one that didn't point out when he had dust in his eyes and let him sleep against his shoulder, just sometimes, and always tried to fill the silence because he knew the quiet was no longer something Obito could bear.</p><p>Obito prodded the fire with his Zetsu hand, watching the flames flicker over the dead skin. Kakashi's one-eyed sulk grew even surlier.</p><p>"I can't stand Kirigakure," Obito said.</p><p>Kakashi glanced at him, barely a half-hearted flicker of his eye. Obito shrugged when their gazes met, leaning back on his hands. "They're the reason Rin is dead. I know every village has done similar things; I know even Konoha has our own share of ones just like her. I don't care. Kirigakure killed our Rin." He glanced back out over the water, watching the bounce and gleam of the ships' lights. It was bright enough to be a festival out there. It made the village look glorious.</p><p>Good for them.</p><p>"It's the reason I chose them," he went on, still watching the water. He could feel Kakashi's eye on him, and very pointedly did not meet his gaze. "I needed to manipulate a powerful village. Kiri was- actually a pretty bad choice, Zetsu was furious with me for it, but I picked them because I hated them. One of the first things I made the last Mizukage do was send the person who'd planned what they did to Rin on a suicide mission."</p><p>He'd enjoyed it, too.</p><p>He'd enjoyed watching the village crumble from his hand. He'd only needed to destabilize the peace, a little, throw a village off balance, but <em>oh- </em>he'd gotten the chance, and why not? If in the end, it was all going to be rewritten, if in the end, none of the consequences <em>mattered- </em>what was the harm in it?</p><p>There'd been no harm in it at all.</p><p>So he'd taken his revenge.</p><p>He had <em>loved </em>watching that village descend into darkness. Just a few careful years of planning to watch it fall from glorious heights into corruption and violence, defection widespread in its ranks and plagued by scandal.</p><p>Every single ninja to abandon the village, he'd taken as a personal triumph.</p><p>"Sort of proves the Mizukage right in the end, doesn't it?" He grinned at Kakashi, and the look on his face- Obito enjoyed that, too. Good. <em>Good. </em>Let him realize his mistake, here. Let him realize this was <em>all a waste of his fucking time. </em>"Who knows how many people I killed in her village, how many that were <em>just like Rin. </em>But I'm glad she gave me the excuse to not have to go there! They can burn, for all I care. I don't... I <em>don't </em>care. I. I-"</p><p>"You do, though."</p><p>Obito stopped.</p><p>"You clearly do," Kakashi said, the words muffled and sore under the crackle of the fire. He tilted his head, watching Obito soundlessly. "It bothers you, that you don't like them. That you don't forgive them."</p><p>
  <em>"So?"</em>
</p><p>"Not that long ago, it wouldn't have bothered you at all."</p><p>Obito scoffed, glaring down at the fire again. The intensity of light and heat made his eye water, the sting of smoke. "What's your <em>point, </em>then? I'm such a good person because I recognize I'm not a dammed saint? Because somehow, I don't think any of the <em>survivors </em>in Kirigakure see it that way."</p><p>"Well," Kakashi said after a moment. He managed another faint grin, one that felt just this side of brittle. "We can't <em>all </em>be Naruto."</p><p><em>No, </em>Obito thought, and gave the fire another vicious stab. They fucking well couldn't be.</p><p>Kakashi was quiet for several more moments, still watching him. Obito stayed set on glaring anywhere but at him, because this was always how it had ended up, hadn't it? Kakashi being <em>better. </em>Kakashi sitting loftily over there and for all Obito had shouted at him for being a cold and heartless machine, look at them now! Look at which one of them was <em>better </em>now!</p><p>He'd told them they should've killed him months ago, and, quite frankly, still stood by it.</p><p>They should've killed him with the end of the war.</p><p>Silence expanded between them again, broken only by the crackle of the fire.</p><p>"I've got an idea," Kakashi ventured at length. "If you like, of course. We're free to keep moving, but- if you're interested."</p><p>"I'm pretty sure you're in charge, aren't you? Your wish is my command, oh <em>Kakashi-sama. </em>Or did you forget the seal <em>you </em>put on my head?"</p><p>It was cruel and mean, and it wasn't even fair. Kakashi hated the seal more than he ever had or ever would. And Kakashi must've known he didn't believe it, not really, because the man didn't even <em>flinch, </em>damn him, didn't even waver once as he plowed on.</p><p>"You know about the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, yes?"</p><p>"Of course I do," Obito spat. "They're mostly dead now. Swords are missing, too. So what?"</p><p>Oh, he'd enjoyed doing that, too. Very much. The Seven Swordsmen had been a hallmark of the village, even in his childhood. The organization had been a symbol of strength and honor, the seven shinobi and their swords an emblem that they had taken such great pride in- and Obito had taken all the joy in the world in driving the group to defect, one by one by one. The hole left in their abscence had been the final nail in the fall of Kirigakure.</p><p>"The swords are scattered, now. Kirigakure only has one; the other six are lost. Most aren't even in the country." Kakashi stopped to watch him for a moment, closer than before. "With our skills and contacts, I think we could find them."</p><p>Another pause trickled by in motionless quiet.</p><p>"You know," he said again. "If you'd like."</p><p>No. He wouldn't <em>like. </em>What on earth about this had at all suggested that this was something he would <em>like?</em></p><p>But that wasn't really a question that mattered. If that had been a question that mattered, he wouldn't be here in the first place. He wouldn't have gone to Kumo, he wouldn't have gone to Suna- he wouldn't even still be alive.</p><p>"It would... certainly fulfill our mission," he said finally, the words forced through gritted teeth. "If that's what you want to do."</p><p>Kakashi's eye narrowed again. "Right. Though... now that I think about it, several of the swords are in the country that we were just told to stay out of."</p><p>"They are."</p><p>Kakashi stopped for a moment, clearly unwilling to go on. Obito, conversely, had nothing to say. There was only solution, and that solution was obvious. They had to split up.</p><p>Either Kakashi trusted him enough to split up, or he didn't. It was that simple.</p><p>Kakashi cleared his throat, when Obito did not take the initiative to do so. "We could work something out. I could collect the swords that are near the village, and you could collect the ones that are not. Your kamui would be indispensable. We could arrange a time frame- six months, do you think? Would that be enough time?"</p><p>Yeah. Yeah, they certainly <em>could </em>do a lot of things.</p><p>None of it was Obito's decision to make.</p><p>"Obito," Kakashi said finally. His eye bored into him with all the force and anguish of a rusted blade, in a heartbeat a look of naked sincerity that made him need to be sick. "If we split up. Will I see you again?"</p><p>And it really just made him the worst friend in the world, and proved everything he'd ever said about this being a waste of time right-</p><p>Because Obito couldn't answer.</p><hr/><p>They divvied up the lost six swords, and split up the next morning.</p><p>Obito couldn't look Kakashi in the eye even once, and when they parted ways, Kakashi watched his back rather than say goodbye.</p><hr/><p>He traveled, for a while.</p><p>The missing swords that Kakashi had asked him to look for were most likely spread all over the world. It almost would've been a cruel move, assigning him these, had Obito not been one of the only people alive capable of teleporting himself around the continent according to his every whim.</p><p>He didn't even need six months.</p><p>Obito walked, for a while. He cut back into the Land of Fire and lingered in outskirts of the village, changing his appearance by the day. He henged himself into Kakashi, into Sasuke; he took on the appearance of shinobi he'd killed in the war and shinobi he'd met in his past year of attempted atonement. He toured through smaller countries just for the hell of it, and ended up trying rice cakes in the Land of Rice and green tea in the Land of Tea. Like most everything else, they tasted like dust and went down like cardboard.</p><p>He passed through the Land of Waves, and took a walk down the Great Naruto Bridge- just because he could.</p><p>He'd been here, just once before. After Team Seven's first mission here had been completed, and he'd heard the details from their shadow chaperone, Itachi.</p><p>By the way Kisame had told the story, Itachi had been annoyed. Irritated beyond belief about his little brother managing to worm himself into so much trouble, on his first real mission.</p><p>Obito knew now that the truth of it was that Itachi had been worried out of his mind, and probably come very, very close to intervening on Sasuke's behalf, and damn the consequences. The fight on this bridge had very nearly ended in an Amaterasu bloodbath.</p><p>He sat down against the railing, staring down to the rough concrete underneath his feet, and sighed.</p><p>Itachi would have willfully burned the whole world to the ground, for his little brother. He <em>had, </em>in more ways than one. He had loved Sasuke to the ends of the earth, and in doing so had ruined Sasuke's life.</p><p>And now Obito sat here, an unwilling member of the world that he had tried to burn to the ground and save all in one.</p><p>Not for the first time, he thought that it would be best if the Uchiha clan died out with him and Sasuke.</p><p>Obito sighed for the second time.</p><p>What was he even doing here? What was the <em>point? </em>Naruto insisted it was good for him, good for him and the world, and Kakashi- Kakashi insisted there was good <em>in him, </em>period. He'd set the world on fire and watched it burn, and there was still a part of him that'd gladly watch Kiri do the same, and what. Because he had enough self-control to recognize that was a bad thing, that was meant to be good? That was a step forward?</p><p>Naruto had done more good for the world with this damn bridge alone than Obito could ever or would ever accomplish.</p><p>And yet, Naruto saw potential.</p><p>Even worse than that, Kakashi did, too.</p><p>Kakashi <em>trusted him.</em></p><p>What the hell was the <em>point?</em></p><p>Obito kicked his heels again, his shoulders slumped and aching and his heart, heavy as a stone.</p><p>He joined the crowd of passerbys with his head down, and trudged his way off the bridge.</p><hr/><p>He crossed the border into the Land of Caves on little more than another whim, and this time, made his way towards the source of the rumors he'd been tuning himself into for months:</p><p>Samehada, in a fenced in and sealed off cave.</p><p>"It's been thrashing around ever since the war," the guard cajoled, pale as a sheet and stuck behind his elbow. Calling him a guard was being generous. Obito suspected he was a farmer who'd picked up a sharpened scythe. "It killed five people, just trying to get it in there."</p><p>"And none of the hidden villages helped you?"</p><p>"Someone gave us a seal," he said a little weakly, nodding at said seal. "It's... we've been afraid to touch it."</p><p>A single seal. Left a bit over a year ago, now.</p><p>Obito grimaced again.</p><p>"Give me some space," he commanded. Then, without waiting to see if the guard would listen or not, he headed forward, and peeled the seal off the edge of the cave. If the man knew what was good for him, he would stay back.</p><p>The cave was predictably dark and musty, having been sealed off for months and months on end. Obito tugged his collar up a little higher, frowning into the dark. Already he could hear rustling from deep within, and feel the pokes against the edges of his disused Chakra.</p><p>"There you are, Samehada." He stopped a few steps back, crouching downwards to get a better look at the twitching, wilted shadow, curled at the back of the cave. "You've got a lot of people missing you. Come on- I'm here to take you home."</p><p>The beast of a sword unfurled, a little, sniffling in Obito's direction. He knew it was familiar with the scent of an Uchiha's Chakra, after years of belonging to Kisame; it had been thoroughly trained that Itachi was not someone to bite lightly, and Obito clearly smelled similarly enough that it was wary. But Samehada had also been left wilting and starving for over a year, now, and only needed one more nudge of encouragement to worm its way straight to him.</p><p>Obito held his Zetsu hand out, offering. Samehada gave a curious sniff, and Obito nodded, cajoling, "Go on. It's really is just about all I'm good for, at the moment."</p><p>Samehada sunk its teeth into his Zetsu hand, nuzzling into it like one particularly horrifying baby, and sucked.</p><p>The story for how exactly Samehada had ended up here was still a little unclear. He knew Killer Bee had liberated it from Kisame, and brought it along with him to their final encounter. After that, the sword had likely gotten lost, in all of the carnage. Obito suspected there'd been some efforts to clear up the area and make it safe again, but Samehada, a sentient and perpetually ravenous sword, had probably squirmed its way off the battlefield long beforehand in a desperate search for Chakra. The ninja who'd been sent to dispatch it here clearly hadn't had any idea what they were dealing with, and had been perfectly happy to slap a bandaid of a seal over it and back all the way off back home.</p><p>Obito only knew about it because he and Kakashi had heard rumors about a wild animal that subsisted only off of Chakra, while in Kumogakure. It had been a hunch of his, that it pertained to Samehada, and he was glad to see it pan out.</p><p>"Feeling a bit better, then?" he asked, patting the beast. His Zetsu limb felt no pain and had no blood to shed, so all he had to go off was the steady drain of his Chakra, as the sword sated itself after over a year of being deprived. Even sitting there on the cave floor, Obito found himself a shade away from light-headed. Maybe he'd actually have to take up the family on their offer to let him stay the night.</p><p>"All right. <em>All right, </em>that's enough. Unless you want to drain me all the way and spend the next century sealed in this case." He settled Samehada with a final pat, waiting to make sure he was really content before sealing him in a cloth jutsu, just like Kisame had. "Come on. At least one of us should go home."</p><p>One sword down.</p><p>He didn't want to think about what Kakashi would have to say, about his new role as a sword's chew toy.</p><p>
  <em>Two to go.</em>
</p><hr/><p>"It's really been a sword? <em>This entire time?"</em></p><p>"It has," Obito confirmed. All eyes on him, he formed the seal a second time, a performative display in a flash of light. Bit by bit, the hilt of the sword began to rotate, months of disuse dissolving into a hunger for Chakra. "It makes sense- the blade must have been damaged, and it needs iron to reform. With the blade as badly damaged as it was, it looks as if the sword deactivated entirely. It needed an earth seal to start to reactivate."</p><p>"And there aren't any earth release users left in the village."</p><p>Obito nodded again, and this time- this time, he even let himself be just a little bit proud, as he gave his blood to the sword and let it grow.</p><p>Zabuza's Kubikiribouchou: the executioner's blade.</p><p>The sword was meant to be massive. Obito, even with his enhanced body, just didn't have enough blood to give it, to let it reform in one blow. Nor did he think it would be very well-received, were he to start swinging it in the Kazekage's office. But he was able to give enough to start the blade at least trying to reform, a few inches of metal solidifying under his hands and proving his hypothesis, right there for everyone to see.</p><p>Gaara and Temari looked a few degrees down from stunned. Kankuro, at least, had the grace to actually be abashed. "I really didn't know," he said, his hands raised. "I only salvaged it from the battlefield because I thought it'd make a good material for a puppet."</p><p>"Of course it did. It's the hilt for one of the strongest swords ever crafted." Obito flipped it over in his hands, tracing the reforming blade with his thumb. He'd seen and recognized the hilt being used in one of Kankuro's puppets when he'd stayed in Suna. So had Kakashi, he surmised- they'd both simply maintained an unspoken agreement to stay out of it.</p><p>Obito sealed the reforming remnants of the sword as well, adding it to his pack. It was going to take a decent period of time for it to reform, using his own blood, but time, he had plenty of. Feeding Kubikiribouchou with his blood; Samehada with his Chakra.</p><p><em>Again, </em>he thought, for the second time, now, <em>at least I'm good for something.</em></p><p>"You're off again, then?" Gaara asked, watching as Obito settled both the swords on his back. "That quickly?"</p><p>"That is the idea."</p><p>"I'm sure Kakashi-san is waiting for you to return," he said, offering a faint smile. "We won't keep you, of course." He stayed at his desk, both his siblings lingering at his shoulders. It was an acceptance of a commitment to exit, an immediate capitulation to not try and convince him to stay.</p><p>He looked at Gaara again. The difference just a few years had made- the transformation that had turned his village from terrified into adoring.</p><p>It would be easy to stay here. Gaara would let him, Kakashi wouldn't mind, Kakashi <em>never </em>minded- Kakashi would just be thrilled to know where he was. And there was work he could do, there was a real <em>positive impact </em>he could have, and... and he could do it. He could stay here, and it would be so easy.</p><p>The point wasn't for it to be easy.</p><p>"The greenhouses are doing very well," Gaara said, just as Obito reached the door. "Your efforts have continued to be a great asset to our village. If you've ever got any more ideas, then you and Kakashi-san will always be welcome."</p><p>Obito frowned out into the beaming light of the desert, the glitter of orange sun dripping underneath the horizon, and did not answer.</p><hr/><p>It was easy to stay.</p><p>That was why he left.</p><hr/><p>Obito found himself back in the countryside, utterly aimless at heart and too tired, all the way down to his bones, to care. He searched out the last sighting of the final sword and lingered in the remains of the battlefield for a while, kicking rocks and sifting through the debris. He found a nearby tea house plagued by bandits, and offered to help them out on little more than a whim.</p><p>"But we can't afford to pay you," the owner pleaded, her old, weathered hands clutching at the counter so tightly her nails scratched furrows. "Not what you're worth. We can't- afford-"</p><p>"A place to sleep is just fine."</p><p>The husband and wife that owned the place were old and scarred, in no condition to fight anyone off. There were two sons, as well- one of them, Sora, was young and pale, young enough to hug Obito's legs upon introduction always be flitting in and out of the shop, at constant play. The other, Hikari, was older, a teenager, and silent. One of his arms was bandaged, and from the way he carried himself it was not a recent injury, but a permanent crippling.</p><p>It was- nice.</p><p>That was all.</p><p>Just nice.</p><p>The seasons turned, and the leaves changed and fell. He made little progress on tracking the sword, and made a little more progress on frightening off bandits. His deadline for meeting Kakashi crept closer.</p><p>He learned that he liked tea. The husband and wife just hadn't felt right about not being able to pay him, but the only payment they could give him was tea, and he hadn't had the heart to tell them he could barely taste it. So he let them serve tea, and he let them experiment and fiddle, and he learned that he had a particular liking for black tea with cinnamon. It was so strong that he could taste it and it was warm and sweet and for the first time in years, he could <em>actually taste it.</em></p><p>He learned that he liked hugs. Because young children were stubborn and so <em>dammed </em>persistent, and the little boy had never been driven off no matter how recalcitrant or cold Obito was to him. And it was as simple as that.</p><p>He liked black tea with cinnamon, and hugs.</p><p>"Can you teach me how to fight like you? Like that!" He punched the air, then drew his arm down in a dramatic slash, cutting an invisible sword against an invisible foe. "Just like you do, niisan!"</p><p>Obito smiled at him back, and for the first time in such a long while, it wasn't even something that he had to force.</p><p>His deadline for Kakashi came closer.</p><p>"Thanks for not teaching my little brother," Hikari told him, one especially cold and brisk afternoon. He offered him a cup of tea, one that he already knew had been prepared exactly the way he liked it. "I know he really wants you to, and... and, thanks. For not."</p><p>Obito shrugged, keeping his focus down on his notes. "It was pretty clear that your parents didn't want me to."</p><p>"You didn't have to listen, though." He hesitated, curling a hand around his bandaged one. Obito had been here for months, now, and the bandages had never come off. "People like us always get left behind. Shinobi come through on missions or wars, and... we're always left dealing with the fallout."</p><p>"The world probably would be better off with less people like me, yes."</p><p>Hikari looked uncomfortable then, clearly not having meant this turn. He started to say something, working his jaw, then stopped as if unsure of how best to go on.</p><p>It took a little more effort than it should've, for Obito to shrug it all off with the offer of a disarming smile. "Is that what happened to your arm? Shinobi?'</p><p>"...yes. During the last war. We were trying to clear up some of what was left behind, and an explosive tag went off." Hikari shrugged again, looking away. "I used to want to be a doctor. I could've. I went to school in the city and did great. But then it turns out there's really not much demand out for one-handed doctors." He glanced down at Obito's cup, a shadow crossing his face. "I can still serve tea, at least."</p><p>"I'm... I'm sorry."</p><p>"Eh? What for?" Hikari got to his feet again, giving him another blinding smile. "You haven't done anything but help us. Speaking of, would you mind taking a look at something for me? It's something else from the war, we've- sort of been sitting on it for a while..."</p><p>Obito swallowed, forcing himself to nod. It felt like he was swallowing bits of glass along with the tea, and the look on Hikari's face made it all the worse as he turned his back to immediately start on his way.</p><p>Naruto had lost an arm, and promptly gotten a replacement sown straight on. Kakashi had lost an eye, and gotten an upgrade stuck into his head the same hour. Hell, never mind them- Obito himself had had half his limbs crushed, and in return had been given a body stronger than any of his wildest dreams.</p><p>
  <em>People like us always get left behind. </em>
</p><p>This wasn't what he'd wanted. And that was hardly a defense, because... because he'd <em>wanted </em>a war. He'd wanted to burn this world down- to build a new one from the ashes, yes, but he'd still wanted to dismantle and destroy <em>this one. </em>He'd wanted to bring the five great hidden villages to their knees because he just hadn't cared any more about the suffering it would cause.</p><p>This, right here. <em>This </em>was the suffering it had caused. Not Kirigakure losing its fame of the seven swords, not new Kage and an unstable new alliance and borders and a peace that almost surely could never last. No, <em>this. </em>This struggling tea house along the side of the road, the world around it permanently and forever scarred, with a crippled son whose life had been ruined. <em>This </em>was what he'd done.</p><p>What did Naruto want from him?</p><p>What on earth was he supposed to do to make this <em>right?</em></p><p>He could do this, for the rest of his life. There was so much he could do and this was one of those options; he could lurk around in roadside tea houses run-down onsen, a hired hand to chop wood and scare off bandits, and it would be so <em>easy. </em>He could drink more cinnamon tea and die without a name and never have to see that haunted look in Kakashi's eye again.</p><p>Hikari came back around the corner, his arms full as he trudged back to Obito, one heavy step at a time. "Sorry," he was saying, grinning sheepishly, "sorry, took me a few minutes to find-"</p><p>Obito dragged his gaze up from his cup of tea, and stopped right on a dime.</p><p>Hikari was struggling his way back in with a load of weapons in his arms. A hammer and an axe, specifically, either one looking almost too heavy for him to manage, and bound together with a length of chain inscribed with seals, row upon row upon row. It clanked angrily, and Hikari barely managed to make it all the way before dropping it all down with a mighty <em>thud.</em></p><p>"You... you think you could help us with this...?" he panted. "Tou-san picked these up from the war, too- we just can't <em>use </em>the damn things-" He tugged on the chain with a second sheepish grin. "Any ideas?"</p><p>"...You have no idea what this is, do you?"</p><p>"Er. No?" Hikari scratched the back of his head, wrong-footed again. "Looks just like a couple of tools to me..."</p><p>Obito once again tried his hand out at a real and true, honest to gods, genuine smile.</p><p>"This," he said, hefting the weapon, "is Kabutowari. It's one of the swords of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. <em>This </em>is what I've been looking for. <em>For months, </em>Hikari-kun."</p><p>"That's- hang on-" Hikari ducked around him, his eyes widening in almost comical disbelief. "This isn't a sword! You said you were looking for a <em>sword, </em>shinobi-san, you told us it was a<em> sword!</em>"</p><p>"I did! And this is a sword, traditional or not." Obito lifted the weapons again, nudging the boy a safe distance back to swing them through the air, whistling a hair's breadth north of their cups of tea. "It's called the Helmet Splitter, known for being able to break through any defense. You use the axe to get yourself a grip, then the force of the hammer to knock it all the way through. It's- oh, Hikari-kun, this is incredible! Do you have <em>any idea </em>how incredible this is? Kirigakure will pay thousands for it!"</p><p>Hikari's eyes started to lighten like the sun, a stunned grin growing to life, and Obito settled the weapons back down to give them a quick rundown. This was it, then, just like that- all three of his swords! Samehada, Kubikiribouchou, and <em>Kabutowari</em>, waiting right here in the back closet of a roadside tea house. Kirigakure must've sent teams through the area a dozen times searching for it, some of them that had stopped right here at this tea house, and none of them had managed to ever once look underneath the underneath.</p><p>Well, he hardly had a choice now, did he? He had to meet back with Kakashi, if for no other reason than to return these swords. Kirigakure would pay a fortune for it, and the very least they could do was send a team back out here to help Hikari and his family when Obito was gone.</p><p>He turned the blades over again, frowning at the sharp cut of the seals linking the pair so surely. "Well, this is your problem, you know. Right here." He tugged on the chain again to put the seals on display. "The axe and the hammer aren't ever meant to be separated. I wonder if..."</p><p>Obito scowled to himself, frustrated. Seals like this weren't his forte. He needed a bit of help, if he wanted to see how they worked. Transfixed, he shoved up his black headband, revealing his Rinnegan to the light, and on the next breath activated his Sharingan for the first time in over a year.</p><p>"Yes," he muttered to himself. "Yeah, that's it. It's not so complicated, I've seen seals like this before. Yeah, Kirigakure will be able to separate these, easy... look, Hikari-kun-"</p><p>Obito started back up to look at the boy, excitement caught in his throat and warmth in his veins-</p><p>Only for the warmth to turn straight to ice.</p><p>Hikari had frozen in place, several steps back but his face bleached paler than the white of the walls. He'd gone almost grey, eyes wide and shocked, and every last trace of a smile had evaporated from his skin to leave behind nothing but horror.</p><p>Horror that was very clearly directed right at him.</p><p>The suffocating silence stretched on so long he could've Obito almost wondered if the kid had had a stroke.</p><p>Then-</p><p>
  <em>"Tou-san! Kaa-san! TOU-SAN! KAA-SAN!"</em>
</p><p>Obito stood, abandoned and somewhat nonplussed as Hikari shot backwards, scrambling away from him in a mindblown panic. He screamed for his parents all the way out the door and caught his little brother by the neck on the front step, hauling him out of the way as if their lives depended on it.</p><p>It didn't click until Obito looked back down to the abandoned tea, still rattling from the force of Hikari's departure, and caught sight of himself in the slosh of the cup.</p><p>His scarred, horrible reflection, the dark vortex of the Rinnegan on one side, and the scarlet gleam of the Sharingan in the other. Watching him from the twisted disfigurement of his own face.</p><p>This face was perhaps the one of most recognizable in the entire shinobi world.</p><p>Outside, Hikari was still shouting. His father was tugged along at his heels, now, an axe over one shoulder, panicked and stammering in disbelief. After months of living here with this family, and that was it. That one look at his face, and that was enough.</p><p>A rock lodged itself in the back of his throat.</p><p>For the first time since the war, Obito used kamui.</p><hr/><p>The fourth shinboi war had ended for a lot of people in a lot of ways.</p><p>For Obito, it had ended with the dead body of his murdered teacher pinning him to the floor, and Kakashi sliced and scarred all the way through, and bleeding on the ground beside him.</p><p>The force of Minato's seal seeped through him from head to toe, and locked every single last pathetic <em>scrap </em>of power that he had behind the power of the very nine-tails that he had tried so hard to take.</p><p>It was over.</p><p>He had lost.</p><p>"Kakashi?" Minato started, his dead eyes bright. The force of his seal and Kakashi's Raikiri buzzed inside Obito so heavy and hot it made his head spin. "Are you sure you're all right?"</p><p>"Yes. Y... yes... I'm fine, just... give me a minute..."</p><p>"Yeah? For what? <em>For what?"</em> The seal bound his limbs and squeezed his throat, but there was just enough left of him to shout and he did it. "You want to take me back? To <em>your world?"</em></p><p>Minato watched him a face carved from stone. It was splattered with blood that wasn't his, and from beside him, on the roughly carved floor, Kakashi struggled his soaked mask down just enough so he could cough and bleed.</p><p>Obito wanted to kill him.</p><p>He wanted to tear the world apart and piece it back together and he wanted to cut Kakashi's throat and protect his heart all in one.</p><p>"Kill me," he spat. <em>"Kill me, </em>isn't that what this is? I should've died years ago! I died then and it was for the best, it was what you all wanted! It's how this ends, it's how it always ends, <em>kill me! DO IT NOW, KAKASHI!" </em></p><p>He hissed the words first but then he screamed it, splitting his spine and his soul down in two. He howled them to the black sky and he laughed for the first time in years, and he wanted to die.</p><p>And Kakashi didn't do it.</p><p>Minato's face remained unmoving and smooth, and he wanted to see it bleed, too. His old teacher looked down at him in silence, fingers locked together in the form of the seal- and then, his gaze slid to Kakashi.</p><p>He was <em>asking </em>Kakashi. They had the ability to end this here and now, and Minato, who was standing here dead because Obito <em>had killed him, </em>was asking Kakashi what he wanted to do.</p><p>Obito threw his head back against the floor, and laughed.</p><p>"You're going to give it up, aren't you? It's everything you've ever wanted, and you're going to say <em>no!" </em>Tears rolled down his face, and he was smiling and couldn't stop it. He didn't care and he was laughing and Minato and Kakashi stared down at him, and what the hell did it matter? What was the <em>point</em>? "I know you want it! Don't you, Kakashi? You want what I'm offering! <em>Everyone does!" </em></p><p>"Obito," he gasped. Just that, his name, through bloody teeth and the fall of his mask.</p><p>Obito whipped his head back and forth, howling laughter again past clenched teeth. "I could give you <em>everything," </em>he choked, and the truth was that he could. Just as easily as he could take the world apart piece by piece and destroy every last one at his feet. "I can give you Rin back. Rin and Sensei, he cried when you died, Sensei. I saw him! There wasn't dust in your eye, was there, Kakashi?! <em>I saw it! </em>I can give you everything back, Kakashi; <em>all we've ever wanted!"</em></p><p>Minato stiffened. He looked stricken, as if he'd just been smacked across the face, and would've paled if he'd had any blood left to shed. His gaze flickered down to Kakashi again, and for the first time there was something there underneath the stony mask.</p><p>Because this was the world he'd wanted to destroy<em>, wasn't it? </em>Not for himself, not for his own life, <em>all of it! </em>He'd done this for Kakashi, to hand him back the entire world that had been taken from him. He'd done this for Minato, and his child that had grown up in a world without parents and turned twelve before ever making his first friend. He'd done this for Rin, because a world where her lightning-struck body could fall in his arms was too horrible a thing to ever, <em>ever </em>exist-</p><p>And fucking hell, he'd done it for himself, because he'd torn the world apart and he'd still failed and <em>all he wanted </em>was the freedom to die, yet Hatake Kakashi himself had the knife in his hand and <em>wouldn't do it!</em></p><p>The jounin sat, after a moment, still breathing raggedly and hanging his head, but his shoulders were set now, and the devastation smeared across his face in blood had wiped itself away. He breathed in an out, white as a sheet but steady, now, steadier than he'd been this entire fight, and he re-fixed his mask with one secure tug.</p><p>"That's never been what I wanted, Obito," he said, and his Sharingan began to turn.</p><hr/><p>Obito stepped out of the kamui vortex to reform on a coast just south of Water Country, and left everything else behind.</p><p>It was the same shore that he had left six months ago, all the way down to the smoldering remains of a campfire against the wash and beat of the tide. The sun shone high in the sky, burning on the back of his neck, and across the harbor Kirigakure waited as nothing less than an executioner.</p><p>Kakashi sat cross-legged by the fire, two swords in the sand beside him and a third still slung across his back. He'd frozen, staring just back over his shoulder with his eye gone wide, and stricken with something more than Obito had ever wanted to see.</p><p>He broke their shared gaze with a jolt of nausea in his stomach, and trudged to join him by his side without a word.</p><p>"You're..." Kakashi stopped for a moment, working his mouth. There were a thousand ends to that sentence, and none of them were anything Obito had ever wanted to hear. <em>You're here. You came back. You're here. I didn't know if I'd ever see you again. </em></p><p>"You're late," he said, finally.</p><p>Obito sat in the sand beside him, staring to his hands in his lap. The Sharingan ached in his head and the sun beat down on the back of his neck, and he was miserable and wanted to curl up, plant his face in the sand, and never get up again.</p><p>And for the first time, he wanted to be here.</p><p>"Sorry," he grunted, tilting his head back towards the sky. "Guess I got lost on the road of life."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>(I really didn't know what to do when I found the Kabutowari on the Naruto wiki, and it was just an axe and hammer awkwardly jury-rigged together :T)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Thank you so much for all the comments/kudos!!!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Iwagakure was a lonely, isolated place, with long, stretching shadows and a fine film of dust that clung to the very air. It was meant to be their last stop on their mission, and this time, the village seemed just as eager to send them on their way as he and Kakashi were to return home.</p><p>Obito's opinions of Iwagakure had never been high. He'd fought a war against them as a child. They'd hurt Rin, taken Kakashi's eye, and as an adult, he watched them buy the services of his Akatsuki to war against the other villages. Conversely, he imagined Iwagakure probably wasn't the world's biggest fans of him.</p><p>He wasn't here to make friends.</p><p>He and Kakashi were welcomed to the village with an all but dismissive attitude, a step above their greeting to Kirigakure but not much more than that. They were relegated together out of the way, immediately ordered to assist with a construction project on the outskirts of the village, and shunted out of sight the very same night that they got into the country.</p><p>It was similar to how they had been treated in Suna. The difference was, Obito had gotten the impression that in Suna, Gaara had offered him seclusion for his own good. The old fence sitter, on the other hand, wanted him and Kakashi in his village no more than Mei had wanted them in hers.</p><p>It was easy and hard and rough and mind-numbing all at the same time. It had been two years since the end of the war, now, and the world had pieced themselves back together as much as it could- any holes this village had been left with, they had now already been filled. The mission they had been given was simply assisting the teams they had in the mountains, clearing out rubble from landslides from the paths, keeping periodic earthquakes under control- all just difficulties of living in the Land of Stone.</p><p>It was boring, a borderline waste of time, and a definite massive waste of his and Kakashi's talents.</p><p>It felt just the same as spending his days helping out in a roadside teahouse.</p><p>It was bearable.</p><p>It was <em>something.</em></p><p>But it wasn't something that he could see lasting.</p><hr/><p>They stayed in together, one morning. Obito got out of bed and Kakashi didn't, one hand lingering over his left eye, and it took only the slightest bit of prodding for him to figure out that the jounin had a headache from the Sharingan.</p><p>"It's nothing," Kakashi insisted, his voice low and gravelly, like rocks. "You should still go."</p><p>"Kakashi, I think we both know that everyone will be happier if I don't show."</p><p>"...well, I was trying to be tactful about it, but..."</p><p>Obito shrugged loosely, settling against the wall himself. The lights were already dim, but he nudged a foot closer to their tent flap, blocking out even that little sliver of sunlight.</p><p>Chances were, nobody would even come looking for them. The Tsuchikage would likely be silently thrilled, if Kakashi got deathly ill right this moment and they had to return to Konoha immediately.</p><p>"It'll go away soon," Kakashi said, when Obito did not speak. His voice still sounded odd and discomforted, trying to reassure him when there was nothing that could be possibly be more wrong. "Sometimes this- just happens. Because I'm not an Uchiha. The Sharingan-"</p><p>"I know. I watched you, you know. I saw."</p><p>"...Oh."</p><p>Obito swallowed, his throat tight. He kept his gaze down as he dragged a finger through the dust, aimless swirls and fans. Sometimes over the years, he'd wondered if he'd not made Kakashi's life worse, giving him his eye. It hadn't mattered to him in the end- his every move had been towards the ultimate goal of erasing this world. Every consequence was worth it, because in the end, there would <em>be</em> no consequences.</p><p>Now?</p><p>The world would've been best off if he'd died in the cave. Kakashi probably would've been best off if they'd never even met to begin with.</p><p>"...Kakashi?"</p><p>"Mmm?"</p><p>"What do you think about the Sharingan?" His throat constricted again, dwindling his voice to a tight and wary cough. "Do you think it's best to let it die out?"</p><p>Kakashi went very, very still.</p><p>"I... think that that's a decision best left to you and Sasuke."</p><p>"Yeah. Sure. I'm still asking you." Obito rolled his eye, chancing Kakashi with another half-glare. "It's not even a question for me at all, not unless you think there's someone out there eager to become my wife. I'm just asking what you think."</p><p>Kakashi kept his mouth shut, arm still over his eyes. He remained perfectly still, the fall of his hair and headband shielding his face entirely from Obito, and what little of him that he could see had fallen under a pallor.</p><p>"I think it's brought you more misery than it's helped," he settled on, finally. "Me as well, if I'm being totally honest with you. But if you didn't have the Sharingan, then we would've died on our last mission together. Rin with us."</p><p>"What. It's worth it after all, then?"</p><p>"I didn't say that. I just mean that it's not all bad." Kakashi went quiet for several moments, his visible eye squeezed shut. "It's not my decision. I don't <em>want </em>it to be my decision, Obito; it's your clan. It's your life."</p><p>Obito raked his hands through his hair, sank even more back against the wall. He wanted to fall into a miserable ball and never come out. His eye, his clan, his <em>life. </em>He'd spent two years trying to give them all away but none of it had ever worked and none of it ever would.</p><p>He'd tears his eye out of his own skull, if it'd do something. If it would matter.</p><p>"You're the last of your clan," he said. To Kakashi, to his hands, to the floor. He couldn't quite look up, so he stared at the skin of his hand instead, scarred and unhealthy and patterned ugly. "What's it like? Have you ever thought about continuing the line?"</p><p>The disparaging twist to the visible sliver of Kakashi's face was answer enough. Still, the jounin jerked his head back and forth, arm still lingering in the way. "No. I don't want that mantle and I never have. I'm happy enough as is."</p><p>"Yeah, you've always been just the paragon of joy, haven't you?"</p><p>He meant it as little more than a lighthearted joke, barely giving the words an ounce of thought. But Kakashi suddenly nudged him at the shoulder, his hand an iron grip and pinning him in place. "I'm happy enough as is. I mean that. It may not have ever been easy and it may not have come across, all these years that you've apparently been watching from outside, but I've always been- okay. And I mean that." He broke off to squeeze Obito's shoulder again, his eye gone distant, almost lost in thought. "The world... is a pretty miserable place. And we seem to do a pretty good job at only making it worse for each other. So I've been happy to just do my part to do what I can to make things better. Like you used to do, if I remember correctly."</p><p>His stomach knotted again, a violent and vehement reflex that filled his insides with lead. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut, breaths lurching free, and he had to press his face to his hands to hold still. "And like I said, you've always been just so <em>damn happy. </em>Yeah? That makes it okay! That- <em>fixes everything," </em>he spat, and they weren't talking about clans anymore.</p><p>"No." Kakashi's eye, half-slitted and thin, flicked to him again. "Who said it had to?"</p><p>Obito kept his mouth shut, this time, and turned his gaze back down to the floor.</p><p>Kakashi gave a loose shrug when no response came, his hand lingering heavily still on Obito's shoulder. "I mean what I said. I... I was all right, before. And I'm even more so now. I have you back. That's more than I could've ever dared to hope for."</p><p>They lapsed back into silence again, Kakashi's arm back over his eyes. Obito wanted nothing more than to kneel there in the dirt and hide for all the rest of eternity.</p><p>
  <em>I have you back. That's more than I could've ever dared to hope for.</em>
</p><p>The quiet between them spread until its weight was crushing.</p><p>"I'm going for some tea," he rasped, wrenching to his feet. His head spun and it felt like he was going to collapse or fall back down on his face or throw up. "You want anything?"</p><p>Kakashi waved his hand back and forth, an approximation of a shake of his head, and stayed silent.</p><p>Obito felt his eye on him his entire way out of the tent.</p><hr/><p>Naruto had put his face up on the mountain, a seal on Obito's forehead, and handed him his freedom on a leash all in one.</p><p>"It's a good will mission," he said, bright-eyed with the excitement of a bouncing puppy. If he'd had a tail, it would've been wagging. "We want to really prove that we're serious about this alliance. That we're all in this together and we'll do whatever we can to help each other. You'll go all over the world, Obito- whoever needs help, it'll be your job to provide it."</p><p>"With Kakashi."</p><p>Naruto's gigawatt smile dimmed, just a little. "Well... yeah." He fidgeted with the stack of files on his desk, seeming unsure of what to say. "There has to be <em>someone</em>, and I... figured you'd prefer it to be him. Besides. He said he wants to do it."</p><p>"I'm sure," he snapped.</p><p>Of course Kakashi had said that.</p><p>
  <em>Of fucking course.</em>
</p><p>The eager look on Naruto's face fell just a little more. He wrung his hands together, his mouth doing a spasmodic little frown, and for several moments just looked at him, for the first time gone entirely grim.</p><p>He looked older now, than the person Obito had fought during the war. Older and more worn and tired, after months now spent grappling with a scarred world, and finally having to realize that they weren't all going to be friends just because he said it was so.</p><p>"You have a chance to make amends. To do the right thing, here. I can't make you like it. But if you were ever serious at all about wanting to make the world a better place, then we're giving you a way to do that."</p><p>"Right." He pulled away with a building huff, drawing his arms around himself as he drew closer to the window.</p><p>It wasn't the village that he knew. That Konoha had been razed to the ground, every home reduced to dust, every memory of his youth burnt to ash. Those weren't the streets that a child with swinging goggles had sprinted down two decades ago, climbing after trapped cats and helping old women to find their way home.</p><p>Pain had destroyed it all, and in rebuilding the village, they had decided to rebuild it all anew.</p><p>What <em>amends </em>could ever be made to this? There was nothing that could ever be enough. There was nothing that could ever even <em>try</em> to be enough, and there was nothing that he could ever do that this world would ever even want.</p><p>It was a new world, a new village, and a new people.</p><p>And he was stranger to them all.</p><p>"And what if I say no, then?" He leaned his head against the glass, watching the movement of the people of the village, bustling underneath the sunset. The same people that had once scorned Obito, ostracized Kakashi, and wished Naruto dead. "I could attack the village right now. I could go down there and tear down all that you've rebuilt."</p><p>"I can stop you."</p><p>Something close to disgust unfurled in his stomach, and he spun back around, staring back at the impassive look on his face and wishing he could tear it to shreds. "What happens when you're not here, then? Huh?! Because you won't be. You can't <em>always </em>be there! Someday you'll be gone and who will be there to protect your precious village <em>then?"</em></p><p>"I think we both know what happens then," Naruto said. His bright eyes searched to the seal Obito knew was burned into his forehead, the twisted insignia that as good as signed his death warrant. "Kakashi-sensei does, too. If you push us far enough then he knows he has to stop you." He paused, watching him with all of the lurking power in the world. "I didn't think you'd want to put him through that."</p><p>Obito gritted his teeth, and lapsed back into miserable and stubborn silence.</p><p>
  <em>I don't want this.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I never wanted this.</em>
</p><hr/><p>Obito spent ten minutes steeping, brewing, and heating his own tea: black, with two sticks of something close to cinnamon. Then, because he really couldn't have felt worse about it if he tried, he set about trying to find something that passed for chamomile for Kakashi. He may not have experienced pain from the Sharingan as often himself, but he really had spent a lot of time watching Kakashi, throughout the years, and he knew what worked and what didn't.</p><p>He was just pouring out a cup, secluded and tired at the very back of the camp, when the sounds of conversation came from over his shoulder and just out of sight.</p><p>"...who knows? More importantly than that, who <em>cares? </em>I don't care how good they are. They're not wanted here."</p><p>"You're preaching to the choir, Denki."</p><p>Obito stopped so suddenly he nearly spilled the tea.</p><p>"It's not just that one. Both of them, Senpai. <em>Both of them! </em>My sister was killed by the Copy Ninja. We were at war with these people, and now we're meant to just work side by side with them and pretend none of it ever happened." There was a low scoff of a sound, angry and disgusted and one shade short of violent. "And this is how it's always going to be from now on, isn't it? <em>Konoha."</em></p><p>"Shh! Shh, shh, will you <em>shush?!</em> We're been told not to complain!"</p><p>"Right. Accept it," their third teammate spat, a woman named Kairi. "Because that's the only choice we have. Whatever <em>Konoha </em>wants. Because we're somehow meant to set aside that just about every set piece that led to this war was theirs? And it's not just the war! Sasuke's still walking free. They're calling <em>Orochimaru </em>an ally now- <em>Orochimaru! </em>If Madara had survived, he'd probably be touring with the Hokage to sign peace treaties!"</p><p>Obito tensed a little, his fingers digging into the cup of tea. Orochimaru was another piece of this new world that left him unsettled, the peace feeling akin to the calm before the storm instead of a lasting armistice. He didn't even want to think about Madara. </p><p>Just because Naruto was satisfied with something did not make it so for the rest of the world.</p><p>Just because Naruto could forgive and forget did not erase the rest of the world's right to justice and revenge.</p><p>Denki huffed again under his breath. "Naruto says he wants an alliance, but how much of an alliance is it when he asks us to open our gates to an international terrorist and we have no option to say no? We don't even get a voice! Whatever the holy Naruto-sama decrees! And-"</p><p>"And what? What do you think is going to happen, by complaining about it?" The group's leader cut them all off with an angry clearing of his throat, finally drawing himself up to take full charge and command obedience. "It sucks. I agree. It's not fair and it's a slap in the face to every one of us. But this is where we are now, and this is what we have. We don't have a choice. We will continue to work with Kakashi, no matter what our history is, and we will continue to work with Obito, no matter what he's done, because our village can't survive telling Naruto no. Is that understood?"</p><p>The shinobi grumbled on again, low measures of discontent and disapproval. But neither one of the team spoke up to argue again, and the group's leader led them on without another word.</p><p>Obito waited behind for an extra ten minutes after they had gone, a cup of warm tea in each hand, and a lump of coal in his stomach.</p><p>He knew what he was going to do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you very much to everyone who commented or kudosed along the way, I really hope you've enjoyed it :) I know things are just unimaginable right now for so many people, so all I can say is I hope this brought a distraction or smile to someone who needed it &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Obito and Kakashi lived in the humid, glass jungles of Suna, the dark, cool archives of Kumo, traveled the world and the seas for the lost relics of Kiri, and labored in the dusty mountain paths of Iwa.</p><p>And then, they came back home.</p><p>Konoha had spent two years building itself back up again, growing under a new Hokage and an unprecedented era of peace. He and Kakashi returned at the turn of seasons, just as the leaves were beginning to change color and the wind turned brisk and cold. It was <em>rebuilt, </em>now, the destruction from Pain's invasion and the world war after all torn down and vanished underneath reconstruction.</p><p>Konoha stood again, now with six faces on the mountain instead of five, and on the morning that the village's two year long good will effort to the rest of the world came to an end, Obito set off on his next mission.</p><p>It was brilliantly early, the sky pink and gold, the early light gleaming a white reflection off the great surface of the memorial stone. Barely past dawn, it and the training fields around it were all but deserted, a lonely seclusion that persisted across the whole of the village every day at this hour.</p><p>A seclusion save for one lone, shadowed shinobi, standing before the stone with his shoulders down and his mask up.</p><p>Kakashi spared a one-eyed glance at Obito, inclining his head just an inch in greeting. "Good morning."</p><p>Obito nodded back, saying nothing. He moved to silently join Kakashi by his side, the long grass brushing under their feet. He'd been to the stone, now, many times before. He'd been there to observe Kakashi from the shadows, he'd watched as the names of his clan were inscribed in, one by one, and he'd stood there in the early dawn and he'd read his own name.</p><p>It wasn't there now. The space of it had been scorched clean and bare, a blank stretch surrounded by the endless march of other names down the black slate- not only was his name no longer the memorial, on account of him not being dead, but the space itself was memorialized for all time. They wouldn't dishonor any fallen shinobi by marking their name where his had once been.</p><p>"I never thought I'd be here with you," Kakashi said softly, his voice low. "I gave up trying to predict anything a long time ago, but... you, standing here with me? That's something I thought for sure was out."</p><p>"You shouldn't be," Obito said.</p><p>Kakashi's grey eye flickered to him again, suddenly defensive. It took Obito a moment to realize what he'd heard, but when it clicked he shook his head sharply, all but backpedaling over himself to fix it. "That's not what I- no. I don't mean me being here, I'm not- damn it... seriously, I rehearsed this all already in my head and you're still messing it up, Kakashi." He closed his eye, breathing in as deeply as he could. "I mean you shouldn't be here at all. "</p><p>"...Hm." Kakashi looked away from him again, his eye gone a cold, grey slate. "Perhaps not."</p><p>It had been two years, now. Somehow, the silence between them could still sometimes be unapproachable and impossible as that day that they had set out from the village together.</p><p>"Minato-sensei had to lobby for Rin's name to be added, you know." Kakashi reached out to trace a line down the stone with his thumb, his expression unreadable. "Because she technically killed herself."</p><p>"She died for Konoha. So did Sensei. So did I, once," he remarked bitterly. "If we're not splitting hairs."</p><p>Kakashi glanced at him again, this time with a small grin. "I suppose it's something our whole team has in common, then."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Dying." He stuck his hands back in his pockets and tilted his head back to the sky, squinting faintly at the sun. "Didn't you know? I died, in Pain's invasion. Another suicide, actually, if we really want to get technical about it."</p><p>No. No, he hadn't known. Obito sucked his lip in between his teeth, a discomforting tightness suddenly expanding in his chest until he could barely catch his breath.</p><p>They really hadn't almost gotten here together, had they? Kakashi had died. <em>Died, </em>and it was only a miracle of Naruto's determination and heart that he was standing here with him now.</p><p>For all the reluctance and disagreements he had with the current Hokage, Obito abruptly knew then and there that he would be grateful to Naruto for the rest of his life.</p><p>"You weren't there. I died, and everyone else was- Rin, Sensei. I talked with my father. But you weren't there at all." Kakashi paused and looked at him again, as if trying to evaluate what that meant to him, what it made him feel. "I thought that meant you hadn't forgiven me, at the time. That I'd killed Rin and no amount of years or penance would be enough to make it right."</p><p>Obito swallowed, his throat constricted. It took him another moment to catch his breath at all, and even when it came he still felt sucker punched. Kakashi had <em>died. </em>"I never blamed you. Not- not like that, I- <em>swear. </em>I-"</p><p>"I know that, now," Kakashi said easily, catching his hand. And suddenly it was Kakashi's voice that was easy and Obito's that was rough, the grief and guilt of a thousand crimes burdened in his chest and suffocating him all the way into the ground. "I know, Obito."</p><p>Obito squeezed his eye shut in the early morning glare, and forced himself to breathe.</p><p>When he could speak again, voice steady or not, he did so. He did not worm away from Kakashi's hand.</p><p>"I'm going to leave."</p><p>Kakashi's posture stiffened minutely, and Obito shook his head, blinking the dust from his eye. He had made an attempt at amends all around the world- he could not give in here, and fail to even try to make them where they were needed the most. "I talked to Naruto. It's what I want to do. For now- I don't want to be where I'm not wanted, Kakashi. I won't force myself into this village or any other. All that would do is hurt people. And I don't want to do that anymore."</p><p>"I... see." He cleared his throat, clearly swallowing objection and disappointment and so many other things, his eye on Obito as heavy as lead. "Your plans, then?"</p><p>"I don't know. Not exactly. I'm capable of just about anything, but-" He sniffed, his nails digging into his fist. "I helped out some people, while we were looking for the seven swords. Not as a shinobi, not as me, just... a stranger. A strong stranger who was able to help."</p><p>"...that's good," Kakashi said carefully. "Then... then." He swallowed and shifted, increasingly discomforted, rolling the words about in his mouth. "Do you think-"</p><p>Now or never.</p><p>"I'd like you to come with me."</p><p>Kakashi cut off short.</p><p>"You- don't have to. Of course." Obito swallowed hard and still looked away, squinting stubbornly at the burn in his eye. "You can do whatever you want. And you could come home, whenever you wanted. You could stay with me and visit Konoha whenever you wanted to, but I asked, and Naruto said you could, and- and it's been good. With you. Though I might not have always shown it. And- and I want to make things right, and-"</p><p>
  <em>And I don't want to leave again. If you... want me to stay.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And I'll never stop saying sorry. But you don't want my apologies and all I can do to make things better is try to listen to what you want.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I don't want to hurt you again.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But I don't want to miss you, either.</em>
</p><p>"But-" He coughed again, and somehow Kakashi's hand was now squeezed impossibly tight in his. "You can't do this. If you come." He gestured at the memorial stone with his free hand and forced a smile at him, and it was probably transparent and ineffectual, but the look on Kakashi's face was indescribable and so he did it again. "I can't be stopping every day just to wait for you to stand out here every morning."</p><p><em>This is supposed to be about moving on, </em>he thought, yet couldn't say. <em>And I don't know if I can do it without you, but... we can't make a brighter future together if you're still stuck here in the past.</em></p><p>Luckily, Kakashi didn't need him to say it.</p><p>The jounin glanced back down at the memorial stone again, his face still impossibly clear. He trailed his thumb up and down the surface again, tracing downwards through their teammate's name, and their sensei's, the mark that had once been Obito's, a dozen others that they had lost over the years to get to this chance that they had today.</p><p>His eye curved into another smile, and he stepped back. "We've both spent a long time standing here. Haven't we?" He didn't look at Obito, but instead to the rise and glare of the sun, a burning gleam of fire just over the hem of the trees that reflected back in the light of his eye.</p><p>He looked at Obito, and the look on his face was one lighter than he had ever seen from him before.</p><p>"Where to first, then?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Feedback is welcome and always appreciated! Stay healthy!!! &lt;3</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://problematic-ranowa.tumblr.com/">Come say hi on tumblr!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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